


Constant companion (& friend in old age)

by pineapplesquid



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Professors, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not super aggressive but there will be some, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:27:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23108461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineapplesquid/pseuds/pineapplesquid
Summary: Aziraphale Fell, assistant professor in biology, is about to be denied tenure. He knows it. His department knows it. By now probably everybody knows it. Unable to stay at the college and with academic job prospects thin on the ground, he’s reconciling himself to leaving the field that he loves. At least he’ll get to leave the departmental politics behind.Anthony Crowley, assistant professor in physics, has a better idea. He’s being courted for a job at another college, and they seem pretty desperate to get him. What if he could negotiate for a spousal hire?He’s certain it would work. Only if they were married, of course.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 159
Kudos: 248





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The extremely self-indulgent academia AU I’ve been wanting to write for a while. There are, um, probably some Feelings about academia and the academic job market that are going to leak in. Possibly a lot of them.
> 
> This is set in the American college system, because that’s what I know, although neither Aziraphale nor Crowley are American here.
> 
> The title of the fic is from Darwin’s pro/con list for marriage.

“Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale jumped, startled by the sudden loud voice from the doorway of his office. He fumbled for his phone, quickly tugging the earbuds out of his ears and turning to see Gabriel standing in the door.

His department chair frowned, temporarily distracted from whatever had brought him to Aziraphale’s hallway in the first place. “Earbuds, Aziraphale?” he asked, lip lifting in the tiniest sneer. “You look like you could be one of the students. Plus a few decades, I suppose.” His laugh was as loud and booming as ever.

Aziraphale smiled tightly and didn’t answer. He didn’t actually prefer to listen to music while he graded, but after the first half hour of listening to Michael next door reviewing an exam in exhaustive detail, noting every point the unfortunate student had missed and when, precisely, they’d covered that information in class and how they should have studied it—never mind that it was a bit late to do any good now—he’d fished the largely unused pair of earbuds out of his drawer and put on some Mozart in pure self-defense. He shrugged instead, hoping to hurry Gabriel along to the reason he’d interrupted. “Can I help you with anything?”

Gabriel, reminded of his purpose, swelled even larger than usual in indignation, filling up the doorframe entirely. He brandished a sheet of paper. “Have you seen this?”

Aziraphale squinted at it, trying to make out the words from across the room. Gabriel rolled his eyes and strode into the office, slapping the flyer down on the desk on top of the pile of lab reports for grading.

Aziraphale could read it clearly now. He just wished he couldn’t. He looked down at it for a long moment, trying to school his expression, tucking his hands under his desk where they could wring each other safely out of sight. “It seems to be a flyer,” he said, still looking down.

“I want to know who put it up,” Gabriel said, his fake cheeriness completely failing to hide his rage. “It was in this hallway, down at the end. Did you see anyone out there today?”

Aziraphale was abruptly glad that he was already studiously avoiding Gabriel’s gaze. “It’s a busy hallway,” he murmured, almost too quietly to be heard. “I really don’t see everyone who walks past. . . “

“This—” Gabriel’s finger stabbed down on the flyer, and Aziraphale tried not to jump. “This is propaganda.”

“If the data are objectively true—” Aziraphale tried to interject, still avoiding Gabriel’s gaze. He suspected that they were. The neat graph showing ranked mean MCAT scores by major was unlikely to be faked, he thought. Unfortunately, for Gabriel’s temper at least, it was indisputable that Biology was half-way down the list and that the top spot, highlighted in red, read _Physics_.

“Of course physics gets higher scores if they weed out all of the students who can’t hack it—” Gabriel was still ranting.

“Actually, I think that our intro courses have rather lower pass rates than—”

Gabriel straightened, somehow managing to make himself even taller and broader than usual. Aziraphale tried not to shrink back into his chair. “They’re trying to steal our new line,” Gabriel declared, a martial light in his eyes.

Aziraphale fought back a groan. The new faculty line had been Gabriel’s obsession for the last year and a half; somehow, despite the overall _decrease_ in the number of faculty across the college*, he’d become convinced that the Provost could be coaxed to give Biology an additional faculty member. This quest had been the focus of the majority of their department meetings since last spring. Gabriel had recently become convinced that it was almost within his grasp, despite the lack of any promises—or even, as far as Aziraphale could tell, direct communication of any kind—from the Provost.

*Not just in the usual suspects like Classics, either. Even Math was down two people, between a retirement and a sabbatical leave that nobody had been hired to cover.

“They think that if they can take our students, they can convince admin that they need it more than we do. They want to steal our pre-meds, do they? Convince them that _physics_ will better prepare them than _biology_? Medicine is all about biology.” Gabriel was glowing with righteous fury. “Conference room. Now.”

Aziraphale jumped at the demand even before his mind caught up to the meaning of the words. He looked hopelessly at the stack of papers on his desk. “I really do have to finish these so that I can give them back tomorrow—”

“You can do them tonight,” Gabriel said dismissively. “They never read your feedback anyway. Come along, Aziraphale. This is _important_.”

Aziraphale gave up and followed. The portion of his attention that wasn’t dwelling regretfully on his intended evening plans* was focused on forgetting the moment that morning when he’d glanced down the hallway and seen a familiarly tall, red-haired figure tacking something up on the bulletin board.

*Finishing the last few chapters of one book and starting another.

**

Crowley would never have thought anything of it, at first, if it hadn’t been for Aziraphale’s reaction.

It was an early Friday afternoon. The closest printer was out of commission, of course, so he’d had to go up a floor and over the bridge to the next building. He was aware that it was considered impinging upon enemy territory, but he needed the quizzes printed for class that afternoon, and there really wasn’t any choice. _This_ printer was working just fine, and it only took a minute to collect the stack of quizzes. His intro students didn’t generally appreciate the questions on different types of radiation, but at least once they’d mastered that they could move onto more interesting topics.

He glanced covertly out of the copy room, strategizing his retreat, but it turned out to be simple enough. The hallway was still deserted. He was about to get out while the getting was good, when a square of brighter light on the floor near the end of the hallway caught his attention.

Aziraphale’s door was open. Without a conscious decision, Crowley found his feet taking him down towards the end of the hallway, away from the bridge back to his own building and safety. But he’d rarely had much sense of self-preservation. Not, at least, when it came to Aziraphale.

The department poster in the main hallway of the building proclaimed Aziraphale Fell to be an Assistant Professor of Biology. In the grid of blandly smiling faces, his had always stood out to Crowley. It wasn’t because the headshot was good—it had clearly been taken by someone in the department, and featured Aziraphale backed up against the side of the building, squinting slightly into the sun and looking self-conscious—but it had captured, probably accidently, the flare of his hair in the sunlight, glowing against the brick background. The text below declared Aziraphale Fell to be an Assistant Professor of Biology and briefly described a research program focused on the taxonomy of barnacles. This dry little paragraph had not, so far as Crowley was aware, inspired any great passion in the passing undergrads; Aziraphale’s research group was generally small, consisting largely of students who wanted a line of their resume for med school applications and who hadn’t been able to get into more popular labs, but Aziraphale had never complained about either the general quality of his students or their scarcity. 

Aziraphale was, indeed, in his office. A pile of papers, liberally covered in commentary inscribed in purple ink, sat near his elbow. Rather unusually, though, his attention was on his rather dusty black laptop. He was uncharacteristically hunched over it in a posture that made even Crowley’s back ache in sympathy and frowning at it, looking unhappy with his words even as he typed them. He didn’t look up at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, and Crowley took the moment to just watch him. The bright afternoon light that came in through the window caught the dust that always seemed to hang in the air—Crowley suspected it had something to do with the truly unreasonable number of books and old issues of journals that Aziraphale had managed to cram into his office—and the steam rising from the mug of tea at his other elbow.

The longer he stood there watching, the higher the risk that he’d be caught at it. Crowley affected a nonchalant lean against the doorframe, vaguely wished that he had his own sleek travel mug to add to the pose, and cleared his throat.

“Just a moment,” Aziraphale said, still focused on the document he was working on. He highlighted a few words, deleted them, typed in a few to replace them, deleted and replaced one of the replacements, and moved the paragraph down below another, the furrow between his brows smoothing slightly as he contemplated the result. “Now, what can I help—oh, Crowley!”

If Crowley ever needed to give an excuse for stopping in to chat with Aziraphale, he could just say that it was good to hear a voice from home. It was close enough to the truth to be a decent approximation, after all; a London accent was a rare enough find in small-town America to sound homey, even if Aziraphale’s crisp, distinctly posh tones weren’t quite a match for the ones Crowley had grown up with. The unaccountable but inevitable note of delight with which he said Crowley’s name was probably only part of the attraction.

“Hiya,” he said. Aziraphale was smiling at him, which he took as sufficient invitation to saunter into the room. He ignored the proffered chair to prop a hip against the end of the desk. Close, perhaps, but not too close. It was a carefully calibrated game, this, but one that, after so many years, he had down to a fine science. The meticulous radius he kept.

He was never sure if it was appropriate or just ironic for the resident astronomer of the physics department to live in a perpetual, never-decaying orbit. Maybe if he studied objects in orbit instead of stellar formation, he’d be able to find some kind of meaning in it.

“Sorry for ignoring you.” From this angle Aziraphale had to look up at him through eyelashes that were so white-blond as to be almost invisible. “I thought you were a student. There’s an exam tomorrow, so I’m getting the usual never-ending stream of questions.”

Crowley smirked, setting the stack of quizzes down on his desk so that he could fold his arms across his chest. “Glad to know I rank higher.”

“But of course you do,” Aziraphale clucked gently. “There are over 70 of them in the intro class this semester, for one thing. And there’s only one of you.”

He seemed entirely unaware of the impact of his words. He always did, which was probably the only thing that made any of this bearable. “Answer their questions and pack them off, then?

“It’s a thought.” The prim arch of Aziraphale’s eyebrows was accompanied by what looked like an unconscious look at the document he’d been working on. “Although then that would have to do it in for being ‘student centered.’”

He was clearly trying to make light of the remark, but the familiar arch tone was less convincing than usual. Crowley frowned and peered down at the words on the screen.

_In order to maintain a student-centered classroom I integrate frequent opportunities for active learning into my courses. I recently redesigned our introductory lab sequence as an inquiry-based service learning project that engaged students in practicing key skills in research. . ._

He read the words again, certainty slowly growing in his mind. He didn’t like the shape of the thing at all. “Aziraphale. Is that a teaching statement?”

**

Aziraphale had been rather fed up with the day’s interruptions, and determined to give short shrift to the next person who disturbed him. He was still behind on his grading, after all, and he absolutely had to finish this draft today. Whoever it was would be allowed one short question, and then must be summarily sent on their way.

All of that was forgotten when he caught sight of who was standing in his office door.

He really ought to still be carrying a grudge, of course. The only reason he was so behind on his grading was the week’s ongoing series of “emergency”* department meetings, the entire spate of which could easily be traced back to Gabriel’s recent paranoia over perceived aggression from the physics department, all of which could most definitely be laid at Crowley’s door.

*In a minor burst of rebellion, Aziraphale didn’t even try to stop himself from imagining the quotation marks around the word, although he was careful never to make the gesture, even when he was in private. He’d been unpleasantly surprised before by how much Michael managed to spot, after all, and the last thing he needed right now was to arouse any suspicions that he wasn’t “100 percent on board” with “current departmental prioritization processes”.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to be sorry to see the other man. It wasn’t often that he dropped by, being in another building himself at all, and the opportunity for a bit of conversation with someone who was neither a student nor in Aziraphale’s own department wasn’t to be squandered.

Crowley wasn’t a friend, precisely. They didn’t share the frequent lunches, happy hours, or weekend escapes to a reasonably-sized city that were the main social activities of his colleagues, at least judging from Aziraphale’s sporadic glances at his Facebook feed. If they hadn’t been the only two new STEM faculty the year they’d started at the college they’d probably be barely more than passing acquaintances. Even now, they rarely saw each other except when coincidence brought them to cross paths. It was always a happy coincidence, of course. Aziraphale couldn’t bring himself to be anything but pleased to see Crowley.

Until he’d asked a decidedly inconvenient question, at least. It was almost enough to make one reconsider the policy on throwing him out.

Aziraphale debated an attempt at evasion, but he doubted Crowley would allow it. And it wouldn’t do any good in the long run, after all. “Well, if you must know,” he said, a bit stiffly, “I’m going to be back on the job market this year, and I supposed that I should update it. I have a few new things to add,” he finished, looking somewhat dubiously at the three remaining pages of hand-written notes. It was never all going to fit in just two pages.

Crowley seemed stuck on the first part of his statement. “On the job market?” he asked sharply. “Why on earth are you back on the market? I thought you liked the area well enough. As much as anyone can, anyway. Has something happened?”

Aziraphale forced a smile onto his face, hoping it would pass muster. “Nothing quite like that,” he managed, tilting the computer screen away from Crowley, even though it was much too late to do any good. “I just thought that perhaps it was time I, well, moved on. Tried something new, perhaps.”

That got another, even more incredulous look. Oh dear, he really was making a hash of this. He should have anticipated someone finding out and made a plan for the inevitable. And of course it would be Crowley, with the way his luck had been recently. “You’re a professor, not in sales or something,” Crowley said flatly. “We’re up for tenure next year. We don’t just ‘move on’. That’s the whole point.”

“The point of tenure is to ensure academic freedom, not job security,” Aziraphale said rotely. “But, well, that is rather the thing.”

The thing was, Crowley was smart. Pretty much everyone here was, of course, for different values of smart—focused and stubborn enough to get PhDs, at least, and that training generally conveyed a certain facility for analysis. Crowley was quick, though, even compared to his colleagues, and gifted at making intuitive jumps with incomplete data.

That is to say, he figured out what Aziraphale was talking around with surprising rapidity. His frown deepened. “They can’t be thinking of denying. You’re doing just fine, right?”

“I had a chat with Gabriel last week,” Aziraphale managed. “My research output is such that—at any rate, it’s not looking promising.” It was harder to admit than he’d expected, and he stared down at his hands, blinking a few times. He didn’t know how he’d manage to have this conversation with everyone who would inevitably find out. The idea of the gossip mill spreading it behind his back instead was just as intolerable, though.

“Your research output?” Crowley asked, incredulous. “Your research output is fine. Didn’t you already have two publications out this year?”

“Yes, but. . .” Aziraphale trailed off, not sure how to explain. “The thing is, I redirected my research program a couple of years ago. Everything I’ve done recently is pedagogical research, you know. Instead of the barnacles.”

“What on earth possessed you to do that?” Crowley asked, staring at him.

“We are a teaching-focused institution, after all,” Aziraphale said. “I wanted to make some improvements in my class, and when I couldn’t find anything that answered my questions, I thought perhaps I had better do it myself _._ I could have kept classifying Cirripedes for my whole career, but what good was it really doing anyone? Whereas knowing how we can better teach our students, that’s of real value. More actual use than anything anyone in this department publishes, really.”

“Did you tell them that?” Crowley asked in horror.

“Of course not!” Aziraphale said, sounding offended _._ “I’m not that much of a fool.”

For a moment he hoped the entire topic might be dropped—it wouldn’t change the essentials of the situation, of course, but at least it would put an end to this conversation—but of course he wasn’t so lucky. “So, knock out a paper or two about barnacles. They can’t complain then, and once you’re through you can do whatever you like.”

Oh, of course it all sounded so easy for him. “It’s not that simple. I don’t have the appropriate samples for additional analyses, just at present. Ramping up a research program isn’t as easy for some of us, you know,” Aziraphale said, too stiffly. He could hear the edge in his own voice, and apparently Crowley could too, flinching back slightly. Aziraphale felt it like a tug at his own insides. He forced a smile. “It’s been made pretty clear to me that it would be too little, too late, besides. And it’s not just tenure, after all, there’s promotion in a few years too. No,” he added, trying a rueful little chuckle and finding himself fairly pleased with the result. “I think it’s best for us all if I just accept the reality of the situation.”

Crowley looked like he wanted to argue further, but after a moment he slumped slightly, conceding defeat. “So, it’s teaching statements and CVs and cover letters for you, is it?”

Aziraphale allowed himself a rather theatrical sigh. “Unfortunately, yes. I’d really forgotten how tiresome all of this is, I confess.”

“You’ll deserve a reward, then.” Crowley, thank goodness, followed his cue, lightening his own tone to something more teasing.

“The faculty meeting this afternoon should do nicely, then,” Aziraphale said drily.

That earned him a groan. “I’d forgotten. Well, after that, then. Any plans for tonight? Going out, having a wild time?”

“I do not.” Even Aziraphale could not have mistaken the intent of the teasing, and he had no hesitation in his response. “My place, then, after the meeting. You may bring a bottle,” Aziraphale said flatly. “A drink is the least you could do for me, after this week.”

Crowley cocked an eyebrow at him. “And to what, precisely, do I owe the honor?”

Aziraphale hadn’t actually meant to say anything about the poster. It would be safest, he was sure, to put the entire thing out of his mind. Forget entirely what he’d seen. Besides, the least hint that he might be even the slightest bit out of alignment with the rest of his department would a weakness that he knew Crowley wouldn’t be able to resist poking at. Defending Gabriel and Michael and the rest of them against those clever attacks of Crowley’s, which inevitable cut straight to the bone and then _twisted_ , took a quickness and skill that he was entirely lacking right now.

He looked down, eye catching on Crowley’s long fingers splayed across his desk, the cock of his hip where he leaned against the edge. But it wouldn’t do to dwell. Instead, he nodded at the stack of papers that were still sitting on his desk. “You used our printer, didn’t you?”

The smile was audible in Crowley’s voice, if not visible in his face, when he replied. “Well, that’s me told off, I guess. Sure, I’ll bring a bottle.”

Aziraphale contemplated the week he’d had. And the fact that it was still only Wednesday. And the faculty meeting yet to come. “Better make it two.”

**

The faculty meeting had finished six hours ago. In a cozy craftsman house in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town, two assistant professors had been drinking for four of them.

They’d spent a few minutes companionly abusing the administration’s proposed new policies on transfer credits—or, rather, Crowley abused them while Aziraphale tried to keep himself from agreeing too overtly and Crowley gave him the look that said clearly that he wasn’t fooled.

From there the conversation moved on to students—they had several in common this semester, which engaged them for an enjoyable few minutes—flowing naturally from there into the more entertaining of the incorrect answers from recent exams and Crowley’s strategy for rooting out a cheating ring that had turned out to be responsible for the sudden increase in quiz grades over the last month.

“They weren’t even clever about it,” he complained. “Sometimes they put in the effort, you know. Get creative. You can respect that.” Aziraphale made a face that he hoped conveyed quite how clearly he did _not_ have to respect any kind of cheating, but all it earned him was a smirk. “But this lot was just careless. All I did was change the order of the responses, and there they were.”

Aziraphale gave a wordless noise of recognition, if not agreement, and turned the subject. He found himself in the middle of a rather too lengthy defense of the few remaining blackboards on campus, which could only be explained by being well on his way through his second—or possibly third—glass of wine. “Altogether more elegant,” he said by way of a closing argument.

Crowley made a face. “’d hardly call chalk dust on everything _elegant_ , Fell.”

Aziraphale waved a hand vaguely, feeling pleasantly loose. “It’s never bothered me, you know. If you just bother to take a little care, it’s fine.”

Crowley gave a pointed look down at Aziraphale’s own outfit—the pale blue button-down tucked into beige trousers, the cream-colored coat thrown over the arm of the sofa—and then down at his own black on charcoal on black. Aziraphale flushed and ignored the look.

“And now they’ve gone and replaced them all in 109, too,” he complained. “And I teach half my classes in there.” He looked back at Crowley just in time to catch a smug expression, too slowly wiped away. He stared for a moment in horrible surmise. “You!” he accused.

Crowley groaned, flopping back against the cushions and not meeting Aziraphale’s gaze. “Me,” he confessed.

“That was your doing? I can’t even get maintenance to replace a burned-out bulb, but _you_ got them to change all the boards over?” He sniffed disapprovingly. “And they didn’t even ask the other instructors in there.”

“Because everybody else likes the whiteboards better too,” Crowley said. “You are the only person on campus who doesn’t want them.”

“Math likes blackboards,” Aziraphale argued reflexively. “And now the pens are always dried out, and the students can’t read a thing I write. You really shouldn’t have,” he added disapprovingly.

Crowley’s attempt at a repentant look was utterly unconvincing, and Aziraphale scoffed as he levered himself to his feet, having belatedly realized that it was well past time to eat. When he returned from the kitchen, bearing a tray with the last of the good cheese and a few other tidbits, he set a moratorium on work conversations and the conversation moved pleasantly into onto books, the quality of the new bakery—the only one in town, since the last had closed three years ago—and Aziraphale’s increasingly pressing need to make a trip to a city to replenish his more specialized groceries. The ever-flowing tide of wine—they’d made a decent start on the second bottle by now—turned it all into a pleasant blur, and for the first time in quite a while, the tension in Aziraphale’s shoulders bled away, until even he was almost relaxed against the back of the chair. He was quite relaxed enough to nearly fall out of his chair with laughing at Crowley’s description of an unfortunate text conversation involving a wrong number, mutually mistaken identities, and what had ultimately turned out to be a very unhappy but also clearly culpable assistant dean.

Of course eventually, inevitably, they wound back up on the subject of Aziraphale’s troubles. The wine, it appeared, was doing its job of loosening Aziraphale’s tongue. For good or for ill.

“Nobody cares about natural history anymore,” he was intoning gloomily. “Who cares about biodiversity? It’s all genomics and big data sets and stick—sacks—sitisics. Even the ecology’s all GIS and whatnot. ’s not like there’s a big fad these days for the taxonomy of _Cirripedia_.”

Rather than sympathy, this provoked a ripple of snorting laughter. Aziraphale glared blearily. “Glad the end of my professional hopes is amusing _someone_ , I suppose.”

Crowley ignored that. “Trust you,” he said, wagging a finger at Aziraphale, still laughing. “Too drunk to remember the word for _emojis_ , but Cirp—Cirrrr—”

“ _Cirripedia_ ,” Aziraphale said, with immense dignity.

“Bloody barn’cles,” Crowley said, giving up. “And you’ve got the Latin.”

“’s all I’ve got,” Aziraphale said glumly. “No grant. No promotion. No job offers, either, I bet you.”

“Don’t say that,” Crowley said, shifting until he was sitting relatively upright, his eyes, startlingly bright even after all these years, fixed on Aziraphale with surprising intensity.

“You haven’t been watching the ads for marine biologists,” Aziraphale said, waving a dismissive hand. “Load of—of buggerall, dear boy.”

“Now, look here—”

“I was lucky to get this job in the first place,” Aziraphale said. “And it’s not like they grow on trees these days. That’s it for me in the academy, I think.”

Crowley made a protesting noise. “Calling it a bit early, aren’t you?”

Aziraphale shook his head, slowing the motion when it made the room blur and his head spin. More. “It’s going be high school,” he said in tones of deep gloom. They sat there for a long moment, both staring at the floor and contemplating the horrors of a classroom full of teenagers, state-mandated curricula, and parental involvement that was not only officially sanctioned, but even encouraged. It really was too much to be born. Aziraphale shuddered, seeing the movement echoed in his guest.

“Won’t come to that,” Crowley said with solid finality. “I know a lot of professors.”

He paused there for a long moment, and Aziraphale frowned at him blearily. The fact was so obvious as to not need stating. “Yes?” he prompted eventually.

“And you.” Crowley, jolted back into action, waved a hand in Aziraphale’s general direction, summing him up from his neat bowtie and tweed jacket to the bottom of his leather shoes, “Are the most profess—profeshable. Proffessial. Hnk. Professor-like. Of anyone I know.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help it. The compliment struck something in him that he usually kept buried deep—it must have floated to the surface, buoyed by the wine, he thought. “Thank you, my dear,” he said, hopelessly touched.

Crowley frowned faintly at that, like it wasn’t the response he’d anticipated, but he didn’t address it. “Can’t bugger off to teach high school,” he said firmly. “You don’t want them any younger than they already come. You know that.”

It wasn’t that he was wrong, Aziraphale thought bitterly. The whole thing would be a lot easier if he were. “What else ‘m I supposed to do?”

Some of his darker emotions must have leaked through into his voice, because Crowley gave him a sharper look, brows pinched in a flash of real worry. He seemed to be taking the question more seriously than it had been intended, as if there were an actual answer to be offered.

“Marry me,” he said finally.

Aziraphale squinted at him, trying to make sense of the words, figure out what the mildly slurred syllables had been supposed to be. “Mmm?”

“’m being recruited,” he said casually. As if it were idle news, to be delivered in passing, and not a wrecking ball that left a devastated, lurching hole in the pit of in Aziraphale’s stomach. “By a school up in New York. State, not the city.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale managed. If it weren’t for the wine, he could have managed something better, he was certain of it. And if he were doomed to leave the college himself, it could hardly matter if Crowley chose to as well. “Congratulations.”

Crowley waved a hand just as expansively as before, so Aziraphale must have managed to keep any trace of bitterness out of his voice. “An’ they really want me. Like, really really want me. I wassn’t even looking for a new job, you know. Till they popped up like, like—”

“A jack-in-the-box?”

“A jack-in-the-box?” Crowley raised a sarcastic eyebrow and shook his head, looking dissatisfied. “Who has a jack-in-the-box any more. No. Mushrooms!” he said triumphantly. “Popped up like mushrooms. There’s some nashural history for you,” he added smugly as Aziraphale frowned, trying to make the connection between fungi and a job offer. “ _Anyway_ , they’re really after me. Think I can probably get pretty much anything out of them.”

He ended the statement by flopping his head back over the arm of the couch, fixing Aziraphale with a very meaningful look. Aziraphale just wished he could figure out what the meaning was supposed to be. Crowley was clearly trying to do more than just brag about how desirable he was. “I’m sure that’ll be good for your start-up coffers,” he said finally.

Crowley snorted, still fixing him with that look. Aziraphale had frequently regretted the sunglasses that usually kept his eyes hidden, but if they could be this compelling, maybe it was for the best to keep them veiled. For the good of everyone around him. And if Aziraphale was having these thoughts, he’d most definitely had half a glass too many. “A spousal hire. Pretty sure I could get one.”

Ah. Apparently what he’d thought he’d head Crowley say was, indeed, what Crowley had said. A coherent response was well beyond him, particularly in his rather wine-sodden state. He stared for a moment, his mouth opening and closing. But he couldn’t find a single word to say.


	2. Chapter 2

**Regional airport**

**November, five years ago**

“Damn.” It was the first word to break the awkward silence that had settled in about twenty minutes ago, ever since the driver had confirmed that they were the two passengers he’d been directed to pick up.

Aziraphale had spent the time since crawling gracelessly into the back seat of the SUV spiraling into ever-increasing dread. He’d heard horror stories, of course, one always did when embarking upon the job market, so he’d been dimly aware that there were departments that scheduled multiple candidates to visit at the same time. He’d never expected to be so unlucky as to encounter it himself, however. This horrifying new development was enough to distract him entirely from his habitual interview anxieties about his talk or how prepared he was to describe his research plans fifteen slightly different ways over the next couple of days. Instead he covertly eyed the stranger, trying to size up the apparent competition. He was tall and slender, wearing a tailored black wool coat over slacks that seemed oddly slim-cut for a suit and a rather unusual pair of sunglasses, despite the leaden grey skies and light flurries of snow that had just started to fall. Aziraphale was entirely certain that they had never met before, not even in passing at a conference; he would have remembered this man, he was certain of it.

The fellow glanced up from the phone that had held his attention thus far, catching Aziraphale’s eye, and he hurriedly looked away, staring out the window at the passing landscape, hoping it wasn’t obvious that he’d been staring. Without the distraction, though, all he could think about was the appalling awkwardness that would inevitably consume the next few days. Hopefully at least they’d have private interviews with the other professors in the department, but there were plenty of other opportunities for unwelcome interactions. Would they have to go each other’s talks? Would they be taken out for the same meals?

Oh, this was just too terrible. The interview process was always competitive, of course Aziraphale knew that, but usually he was at least able to temporarily forget about his rivals and pretend that he was just having a series of pleasant conversations with potential colleagues and giving a nice, normal research talk, rather than proving himself the absolute best out of however many dozens or hundreds of candidates had applied. And with him being in the fifth year of his post-doc position, and funding running out, and it was nearly the end of the job season and he hadn’t even heard back from his last interview, even after he’d taken three days to travel out to the campus, the least they could do was _tell_ him they were rejecting him—

It was this rapidly degenerating frame of mind that was interrupted by the quiet but fervent curse word from the other passenger. Aziraphale, almost grateful for the distraction, even one of a profane nature, looked over. The stranger had set down his phone for the first time since Aziraphale had set eyes on him, and was rummaging through his sleek black leather case. He apparently didn’t find what he was looking for, setting it back down on the seat and running a hand distractedly through his hair with quiet but heartfelt, “Fuck.”

“Pardon?” Aziraphale asked, trying not to look at the rather distracting way that his hair was sticking up now, firmly quashing the impulse to reach other and smooth it. He really wouldn’t want to look that ridiculous when they met the chair of the search committee at the hotel. Of course, if they were indeed to be competitors for the position, Aziraphale should really just let him dig himself deeper.

The man repeated the gesture, only making matters worse, before finally looking up and meeting Aziraphale’s gaze with a crooked smile. “Forgot my adaptor."

“For the projector?” Aziraphale was seized with the sudden urge to check his own bag, despite having a perfectly clear memory of putting both of his own in before when he’d packed the night before. It wouldn’t actually have vanished since.

He nodded ruefully. “The chair finally got back to me. Bit late to do any good, you’d think. Anyway, she says there’s only HDMI in the classroom for both the teaching demo and the talk. And all I’ve got on me is the one for VGA.”

“Mmm,” Aziraphale said sympathetically, distracted. The chair of the search committee was Gabriel, surely? Had he misunderstood something? It would be awfully embarrassing if he’d made a blunder already with a false assumption. “I’m sure you can borrow one.”

That just earned a noncommittal noise. “’s the new version. Has the different ports. Doubt the college is issuing them yet.”

Aziraphale, having had the same problem a month ago before caving and purchasing an entire new set of adaptors to go with his own new laptop, had to acknowledge the point. “There’s always Google,” he said consolingly. “Or email. I’m quite sure there’s a desktop you can run it from.”

The man was only looking more agitated with each of Aziraphale’s attempts to sooth. “Nnngh. The file’s really a bit large. Simulations of stellar formation are pretty big.”

“Stellar formation?”

“Yeah, you know. Giant molecular clouds making hydrogen and dust to turn into stars. Our best guess as to what’s going on around the galactic core, anyway.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said, scrambling a bit to keep up. “Yes. You’re an astronomer?”

“Yep."

The relief was so strong that Aziraphale felt almost light-headed. Not a group interview, then, just two separate searches that happened to be flying candidates in at the same time. The giddiness, no doubt, was responsible for what he said next. “You can borrow mine.”

There was a moment of silence. “What?” the man said, finally, sounding rather stunned.

Oh dear, and there Aziraphale had gone, making it awkward, and right after the situation had finally gained the potential to redeem itself. “You can borrow mine,” he said quickly, as if doubling down was actually the way through this.

A beat of silence. “Won’t you need it?”

Aziraphale gave a laugh that hopefully didn’t sound as feeble to his listener as it did to his own ears. “My room may well have VGA instead.” Not to mention the versions that he’d saved to the cloud and in his email, just in case. “I’m sure it will be fine, er. . . “

The man was giving him an oddly quizzical expression, but a moment after Aziraphale trailed off he seemed to realize what he was waiting for. “Crowley.”

Was that a last name, or a first? Aziraphale, unsure if he should introduce himself in turn by his own first name (even at the best of times a somewhat dicey proposition) or as Fell, evaded the question by doing neither. “Here we are, then,” he said, pulling his own bag onto his lap. In comparison to Crowley’s sleek case the brown leather looked worn, the bag overstuffed. He’d probably packed too much in it, he thought despondently, as he fished through the outer pocket in search of the adaptors. They eventually surfaced in a tangle of assorted cords. It took Aziraphale a minute to identify and separate the one he wanted, but eventually he looked up, ready to hand it over.

Crowley had the odd expression on his face again, a slightly cocked head and a raised eyebrow that seemed to suggest that he was trying, and failing, to make sense of the scene in front of him. Even with the sunglasses screening his eyes his regard was strong enough to be almost tangible, and Aziraphale felt himself flushing under it. For a moment he was almost tempted to forget the whole thing, but there was also an expectant quality to that look, and going back on the offer would hardly make the situation _less_ awkward now. Mutely, horribly aware of the color in his cheeks giving him disgracefully away, he held the adaptor out.

Crowley’s glance flickered from his hand to his face and back again, at least as well as Aziraphale could tell behind the sunglasses. After a moment he reached out and took it, precisely enough that his fingers never even brushed Aziraphale’s. “Thanks,” he said, quietly but apparently sincere, as he stowed it away in his own bag.

The rest of the drive lapsed back into silence. Worries now assuaged on the matter of his hypothesized competitor, Aziraphale’s drifted back to more routine interview anxieties, including a faint voice clamoring that showing up without an adaptor that could prove necessary would make him look unprepared, and replaying every word of their short conversation in his head and debating how awkward he had seemed.

They were staying at different hotels—there were only two in town, Aziraphale would later learn, but for truly ineffable reasons the biology department had chosen to put him up in the decidedly less convenient one—and it was only as the driver was unloading his suitcase and he was sliding out of the car that Crowley’s silence broke. “Good luck.”

Aziraphale looked up, mildly startled. “You too,” he managed after a moment, and conjured an attempt at a smile. “Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

He just caught a glimpse of the startled half-smile that earned as the door swung closed, blocking his view, and he forcibly turned his thoughts to more pressing matters. He still had to get ready before the committee picked him up for dinner, after all.

**

Feeding the ducks had become, if not something formalized enough to call a tradition, something of a habit for them. Well, Aziraphale spending a few minutes chatting while Crowley fed the ducks, at any rate.

Today Crowley had taken up his habitual position, a few feet away from the large hand-painted sign that enumerated a list of dire consequences of feeding waterfowl, all footnoted with the relevant peer-reviewed source. The rebuttal, which Aziraphale had noted the previous week was rather less securely attached to the post, had apparently been removed. It would no doubt be replaced soon enough, though.

It seemed improbable, perhaps, but the site of one of the most fiercely fought battles on campus was, in fact, the safest place for them to talk. The lines were firmly drawn in the sand, after all, and both were assumed to have fallen neatly in step with their respective departments. Any onlooker who mattered would instantly know that Crowley was there to feed the ducks in order to make whatever kind of point feeding ducks could make, and Aziraphale to scold and cite statistics about nutritional needs and the risks inherent in exceeding the natural carrying capacity of the system.

“Relax,” Crowley said, not even turning as Aziraphale approached. “It’s lettuce.”

“I know perfectly well what it is,” Aziraphale snapped. He regretted the tone almost before he’d finished speaking, but he was rather committed now. “What I want to know is why you’re out here at all.”

Crowley shrugged, eyes still on the ducks. “Lettuce in the fridge was on its last legs, I had a few spare minutes.”

Crowley habitually fed the ducks on _Tuesdays_ , while trying to avoid actually being in his office during his office hours. Never on Thursdays, especially not this semester, when he had no classes scheduled and had been habitually working from home. There was also the suspicious crispness of the lettuce, which was hardly ‘on its last legs’.

“You can’t expect—” Aziraphale’s intended accusation was cut off by the sound of footsteps along the path behind them. He cut himself off abruptly, pulse speeding up at the prospect of being be found out.

Crowley didn’t miss a beat. “Greens are a natural part of their diet, Fell. It’s hardly empty calories, or whatever it is your lot like to say.”

“Supplemental caloric inputs at this time of year may reduce the drive to migrate,” Aziraphale managed, feeling like he was scrambling to keep up. “And the effect of that on the pathogen load—”

“Is ambiguous at best,” Crowley drawled. The footsteps had only briefly faltered before hastening on, the owner apparently deciding that they most certainly did not want to get drawn into the discussion. “The stress of migration makes them more susceptible to diseases, you know that. All clear,” he added before Aziraphale had to muster a counter argument. He glanced up to see one of the chemistry professors hurrying away. No one else was in sight on the path, and he tried to calm his still-racing heartbeat.

For a moment he contemplated resuming his line of argument—to wit, that Crowley had chosen to feed the ducks today because he knew that Aziraphale could see this corner of the pond from his office window and would inevitably come out to investigate—but there didn’t seem to be much of a point. They both knew it was true. And it seemed a little ungrateful, given that Crowley had risked attracting the attention of Gabriel of Michael, neither of whom would have forgone the full lecture, solely to have a word with Aziraphale. And after the previous night’s disaster, too. If even Aziraphale’s head still throbbed faintly in the bright sunlight, Crowley’s more sensitive eyes must be making him considerably more miserable, even through the sunglasses. Perhaps mercy was called for.

“It’s a nice day for it,” he said instead, not missing the way that Crowley’s shoulders relaxed at being let off the hook.

That whittled the herd of elephants standing on the grassy bank with them down to one. Aziraphale debated whether, and how, to bring it up. That morning when he’d woken up, he’d decided quite firmly that he was never, under any circumstances, going to mention the previous night to anyone. There was nothing much to talk about, after all. It would unpardonably rude to even hint at the idea that Aziraphale might hold Crowley to whatever foolishness he’d strayed into under the influence of rather too much wine. His scheme* had probably been intended as a joke, really. Crowley had probably been quite dismayed when Aziraphale hadn’t managed a hearty laugh. He really should have done so, in retrospect, instead of lapsing into an awkward silence that had blighted the evening beyond recovery. No wonder Crowley had made his excuses and left so soon after.

*The word _proposal_ hovered around the back of Aziraphale’s subconscious, but found it too well-defended against such an hostile intruder and was forced to retreat unrecognized.

No, leaving it all behind was a comfortable decision, and one that additional consideration only made him feel better about. They’d both forget the poor judgement of last night—Aziraphale’s unattractive moping, Crowley’s impossibly generous impulsiveness—and move on. No need to ever broach the topic again.

“Well?” Crowley’s voice broke in on his thoughts.

Aziraphale jumped slightly. He carefully kept himself facing towards the pond and the ducks, but allowed himself to turn just enough that he could keep a better eye on Crowley. “Well, what?”

“Thought about it?” Crowley raised an eyebrow at his blank look. “It’s a brilliant idea, you know, if I say so myself. And I do. Get us both out of here, keep you in the game, show that department of yours where they can stuff it.”

“I, er, that is,” Aziraphale stuttered. Apparently they were going to talk about it. At least this time he was able to gather his wits a bit more quickly. “You can’t be serious, Crowley.”

Crowley squinted at him. “What? ‘s a good plan. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. Trust me, they can afford to hire a new line. I know it’s not right on the water, but everyone can use a marine biologist, right?”

“But—but we’re not married!” Aziraphale managed.

Crowley shrugged, tossing a few more fragments of lettuce to a duck that had wandered inadvisably close. “So?”

“So? So it’s a pretty good reason you can’t get me hired as your spouse,” Aziraphale said flatly. Even just saying the word felt unreal.

A repeat of the shrug. “People get married all the time.”

“You can’t possibly—do be serious.” Aziraphale hadn’t been able to let himself do more than glance sideways at the idea, trying to catch it out of the corner of his eye before the rest of his brain could become aware. He was in no way ready for this sort of frontal assault.

“Look, it’s not that complicated,” Crowley drawled. He and the duck eyed each other. The bird edged away, although it was still keeping a careful eye on the hand that held the bag of lettuce. “We get married—or just tell them we’re going to get married, that might do it—and you get a job. Easy enough, solves everyone’s problems.”

Aziraphale still wasn’t quite clear which of Crowley’s problems the scheme was intended to solve, but that was really the least of his worries. “Crowley—"

“I’m still waiting on an answer, here,” Crowley interrupted. “Bit rude, don’t you think, to let someone pour their heart out and not even give them a response, don’t you think?”

“If you think that a slightly slurred description of your negotiating potential at a prospective new job counts as ‘pouring your heart out’, I’m not entirely sure you’re as deserving of a response as you think.”

Crowley snorted in dry appreciation. “I popped the question, didn’t I? And explained my logic.”

“You are enough to give physicists everywhere a bad name,” Aziraphale said severely, then considered. “A worse one, perhaps,” he amended. “Really, Crowley, a proper proposal of marriage can hardly be motivated by the dismal nature of the academic job market.”

“People have been getting married for practical reasons for an awfully long time,” Crowley observed. “It’s not like I’m using you for a greencard or something. No fraud involved.”

“You think that your new college would agree?” Aziraphale asked tartly. “And you’re not proposing to use me for anything at all, you know. I still don’t see what earthly good you’d be—”

“They’d be getting an awfully good biologist, is what they’d be getting. Everyone wins, aside from the idiots—”

“Crowley, if you’re just going to insult my department I’m going back inside—”

He couldn’t see Crowley’s eyes behind his glasses, but from the angle of his head, now turned away almost entirely from the ducks, it was clear enough that all of his attention was focused on Aziraphale. “Come on, now.” His voice didn’t betray any of the tension that his posture did. “Just say yes. Enough to give a fellow a complex, you know, not getting an answer.”

“You know, you never actually did ask,” Aziraphale said. They were not at all the words he’d meant to say, but it was too late to call them back.

It was hard to tell past the sunglasses, but he thought he say Crowley’s eyes widen a moment. Then a dry little smile crept across his face, small but without the familiar sardonic edge. “Better fix that then,” he said, more to himself than to Aziraphale. He glanced down and then around at their surroundings. “I’d go down on a knee,” he said, looking back up at Aziraphale, “But I’m pretty sure at least one person is watching us from those windows, and I assume you don’t want word getting out just yet. Aziraphale, light of the biology department, will you—”

“Stop it,” Aziraphale snapped, more harshly than he’d meant to. But the image of Crowley, down on one knee amongst the green, looking up at Aziraphale, eyes open and exposed, face lacking the mockery that was gracing it now, had taken up residence in his brain, and he had to banish it somehow, _right now_.

There was a hint of the same bite in Crowley’s voice as he replied. “You can’t complain that I didn’t ask and then not let me do the actual asking, you know.”

Oh dear. Whatever whimsical, gallant notions had taken root in Crowley’s mind, it had to be better to rip them out sooner than later, before this could get even more out of hand. “Crowley. You’re very kind—” A sputtering denial, which he ignored. “—but you’re being ridiculous. You can’t possibly think that this would be a good idea.” He forced himself to take a step back, turning away as he did. “I have a meeting, I must get back.”

In the end it wasn’t so hard after all. One step, and then another, and then he was leaving behind Crowley and his terribly alluring, terribly dangerous idea.

**

As Crowley walked down the hall he could hear two voices coming from the open door ahead—Bee’s, which was logical enough in her office, but also the distinctive rasp of Hastur’s voice. He made a beeline for it, spotting an excellent opportunity to improve his day.

He knocked gently on the open door and stuck his head around it, cutting off Hastur, who was apparently complaining about his course schedule for the spring. Huh. Crowley hadn’t even known it was out yet.

Bee looked up, fixing him with her standard glare, known to send undergraduates and particularly insecure junior faculty* fleeing. Her real last name was something long and apparently un-pronounceable, according to rumor; back in her first year of teaching she’d earned the nickname of “Beelzebub” from students in her quantum mechanics class. Although nominally top secret, she’d caught wind of it quickly enough, and, rather than failing the entire terrified class, had apparently adopted it with glee. It had rapidly become shortened to Dr. Bee. Crowley, who spent the first few weeks of each semester relentlessly campaigning for students to drop the “Dr.” from his own name, grudging respected the style of the thing.

*Not from physics. There were no insecure junior faculty in physics; the department took pride in starting as it meant to go on, and no one of a nervous disposition was likely to make it through even the first round of video interviews.

She’d been chair of the department since he’d arrived, her rotation through the office having been extended by the complete lack of interest in administrative work by anyone else in the department. It was, Crowley suspected, a largely thankless job, but one that she seemed to accomplish competently, if perhaps autocratically.

Her glare was standard issue—nothing to be particularly concerned about. Hastur’s glower, on the other hand, was entirely personal. Crowley was never sure what he’d done there, but neither did he particularly care. The only remarkable thing about Hastur was how he’d somehow managed to scrape up good enough student evaluations to make it through his own tenure process. It certainly wasn’t due to personal charm, and even in STEM being a white man only got you so far if you had literally nothing else to recommend you.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said to the pair of them, flashing an insincere smile. “I just had a quick question."

Hastur glared some more. Bee cocked her head, regarding him. “Yes?”

“I couldn’t remember for sure—does the college press office want notification of a new publication directly from me, or would they rather get it from you?” Crowley leaned against the door, keeping his tone casual, letting in only the barest hint that he knew perfectly well what he was doing.

He might not care overmuch for the game, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be good at it.

Hastur looked murderous. Bee didn’t venture towards anything as positive as looking _pleased_ , but the glare relaxed slightly. “I can send it in. What journal?”

“PNAS,” Crowley answered, just as casual, and had the gratification of catching the flash of surprise on both of their faces. He flashed a grin. “I’ll send you over the details. The old headshot should still be fine, right?”

That earned him an eyeroll, although to his practiced eye it didn’t betray real irritation. One didn’t last long in the department without being able to avoid pushing Bee past her habitual state of mild annoyance.

Hastur was well past that point himself, looking almost catatonic with rage. Crowley watched him expectantly, letting his smile grow more mocking with every second that passed. Finally he grimaced*, gritting out a very reluctant, “Congratulations.” Crowley’s smile broadened as he nodded in acknowledgement and, satisfied, he took himself off.

*It was impressive, Crowley thought, how such an unpleasant sight as Hastur’s face could get even _less_ attractive.

At least now someone was having a worse day than he was.

He made it to his office without further incident, aside from greeting a few students in the hall. As soon as he’d made it in he collapsed onto his couch, not bothering to turn the lights on. After a moment he reached out to kick the door closed, taking off his sunglasses so that he could run a hand over his face, blocking out the light that filtered in through the shades over the window.

Aziraphale would have to see reason eventually.

He always did, after all. This was hardly the first time that Crowley had found him to be inexplicably stubborn about accepting the obvious course of action. The stakes this time might be higher than the times he’d been talking about letting students write the syllabus or had considered taking Sandalphon in as a roommate, but the fundamental pattern would inevitably be the same. Aziraphale would take some predictably well-meaning but disastrous idea into his head and it would be up to Crowley to persuade him against it.

He himself was just as certain of his proposed solution as he had been when it popped fully-formed into his brain the previous afternoon, not five minutes after Aziraphale had, under duress, confessed his dilemma. Crowley would have been embarrassed that it had taken him a whole five minutes, but in his defense, the initial reactions of panic, closely followed by the familiar but amplified disgust with the biology department, as both an institution and a collection of individuals, had been overpowering. It had taken him a few minutes to move on to solutions, ok?

And this. This was a good one. True, Crowley hadn’t previously been particularly inclined to seriously consider the new job, but that had been due more to inertia rather than a more considered choice. Sure, he was doing just fine here, but his current department was hardly a shining beacon of functionality either.

The quantity of really quite excellent wine, while not to blame for the generation of the idea, was definitely the culprit in how he’d blurted out like that. He winced at the memory, and again as the movement set his head throbbing. He’d had a plan, damn it. He was going to introduce the idea gradually. Get Aziraphale thinking about it before Crowley even mentioned it himself. Delicately give the impression that it was actually Aziraphale who’d be doing him the favor somehow. He certainly hadn’t meant to suggest the scheme that abruptly, much less in precisely those words.

Today hadn’t exactly gone better. Still. He’d recover, somehow. This was the right thing to do. It had to be.

There was only one thing that he’d never pushed Aziraphale on. On one subject, and one alone, he’d been willing to take a hint. Well, maybe it had taken two. But his—their—status had been made quite clear four years ago, and Crowley had never wanted to make a pest of himself beyond that.

Aziraphale didn’t want to be more than friends. And that was what they’d stayed.

But this was different. He wasn’t asking him to return his feelings, after all. Not to give Crowley anything _real_. More like a business arrangement, really; a way for Aziraphale to stay in academia, where he so clearly belonged, and for Crowley to avoid having to be wherever he wasn’t. The college wouldn’t be nearly as fun without him, after all.

If Aziraphale had been willing to consider living with _Sandalphon_ , of all people, surely he couldn’t be too resistant to do the same with Crowley. He wasn’t asking for more than that.

It was obvious enough that he’d need a new strategy, though.

**

**Main conference room, campus administrative building**

**August, four years ago**

Crowley sauntered into the conference room at 8:59. The dean was lurking in ambush by the door, and he was subjected to a hearty handshake and enthusiastic welcome, but he escaped with only minimal mauling.

He scanned the room—just idly checking out his new colleagues, of course—and _there_. A head of pale curls that caught the eye. The face that went with them was hidden, the figure bent forward over a book that was open on his lap, but Crowley could easily draw in the blue-grey eyes, pink lips, and hesitant little frown from memory.

Neither of the seats next to the man were taken, presumably due to the distinct lack of interest he was displaying in the other people now filling the room. Crowley sauntered over and slid into one of them.

“Morning.” That, finally, got the fellow to look up from his book. His eyes widened gratifyingly as they caught sight of Crowley. “Thought perhaps I’d see you here.”

The smile that bloomed over his face was even better than catching him by surprise had been. “Good morning! A pleasure to see you again.”

Crowley leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. He glanced around the room again before turning back to his companion. “You know, I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

“Ah, yes.” There was an odd momentary pause. “Aziraphale. Fell.” Crowley found himself frowning, trying to make sense of the collection of syllables. A short, quiet sigh indicated that it was a familiar problem. “Aziraphale, Fell. Is my name. It’s an old family—"

It had the sound of a highly rehearsed explanation. Crowley waved it away. “Fell. Got it. I’m—”

“Crowley.” The smile was back, and there was a softness in his eyes that was almost unbearable, coming from a near stranger. Almost. “I remember.”

Christ, what was he supposed to say in response to that. He stared a moment, before abruptly remembering his putative purpose in coming over. He reached for his bag, forcing himself to move slowly and casually rather than diving for it. He reached into the outside pocket, fingers catching on his prize and fishing it out easily. He proffered it on his open hand. Fell stared at the little white box and cord as if he’d never seen anything so unexpected in his life. Crowley smiled—and if there was more sincerity in it than he’d quite intended, it probably wouldn’t do any harm. “Think this belongs to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a second chapter! No promises on update schedule, though, particularly as I'm spending the next couple of weeks moving all my courses online. . .


	3. Chapter 3

**North campus parking lot**

**November, four years ago**

Aziraphale stared at the little rectangle of plastic on the ground by his feet. He felt to too stiff to even lean over and pick it up, especially given that apparently his fingers were too numb with cold to keep hold of it. He managed the task somehow, only to find himself frowning at his windshield, feeling the futility of the whole situation. He was quite sure he’d heard of people using old credit cards or similar to scrape off their cars when they’d been foolish enough to be caught without the proper equipment. Aziraphale, however, was finding it ineffective against the layer of ice that was, by now, coating his entire car.

Glowering at his pathetically small patch of relatively clear windshield wasn’t going to do him any good, though. He tried to take a firmer grip on the expired driver’s license that he’d never gotten around to taking out of his wallet and shuffled around, trying to find an angle with better leverage that didn’t also involve pressing his entire body against the frigid car. He resumed his scraping.

“What are you doing?” The voice sounded from right behind him and Aziraphale jumped, fumbling the card again and watching helplessly as it slid down the windshield and across the hood to land once again at his feet. He stared at it for what felt like a long moment before he finally managed to turn and make out his interrogator.

It was Crowley, of course, unmistakable even if all that could actually be seen of him was the sliver of his face the emerged between the high-collared black coat, grey scarf, hat and ever-present sunglasses. Aziraphale, whose face had long since gone numb from the wind that was still hurling ice pellets against it, found he was rather jealous.

“Crowley.” Even the word felt stiff, although that was more the fault of how he could hardly move his lips. “The weather’s gotten quite a bit worse since this morning, I’m afraid.”

He really couldn’t make out any of Crowley’s expression, but the sardonic lilt in his voice was unmistakable when he replied. “You could say that. But really, Fell—”

“Aziraphale, please.”

“Aziraphale. _What_ are you doing?”

Aziraphale looked from the iced-over windshield—the bit he’d cleared was starting to get a fine film of frost sealing back over it, he noticed despairingly—to the card at his feet. “It’s supposed to be a decent substitute for the real thing in a pinch. Or so I’m informed.”

“You don’t have a scraper.” Crowley’s voice was flat, but there was a hint of humor beneath.

“I’ve been intending to get one.”

“Where have you even been—” Crowley had bent to retrieve the unfortunate card that Aziraphale had given up on. He straightened, looking down at the cheery pastel colors, which seemed rather out of place in the dismal surroundings. “Ah. Florida.”

“My post-doc. I wasn’t expecting this sort of thing quite so soon. Caught off guard, unfortunately.”

“Right.” He held the card out. Aziraphale reached to take it and he made a surprised noise that seemed to be composed mostly of consonants. “You’re not even wearing gloves.”

Aziraphale attempted a smile, although between the miserable situation and his blossoming mortification, he doubted it was particularly convincing. “Moths got into much of my winter wear, I’m afraid. I’ve been meaning to replace them, but—”

“You weren’t expecting the weather yet, even though it’s November and the forecasts have been predicting a temperature dip all week.” Crowley looked at him for a long moment, then seemed to come to some kind of decision. “Get in the car, get it warming up. Should start with that, you know.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, rather weakly, dropping his gaze. “Of course. I should have thought of that. A bit out of practice, I suppose." He turned his attention to his pockets, feeling for his keys and finally managing to fish them out with nearly useless fingers. He looked up, a little embarrassed at the rather pathetic show he must have put on, but apparently it didn’t matter. Crowley had disappeared.

It took some effort to even get the door open, but getting inside the car was a distinct relief. Even if the ambient temperature was scarcely above the outside, at least the wind was no longer flinging tiny biting pellets of ice at his face. He fumbled the key into the ignition, listening to the comforting grumble of the engine and turning all the fans to maximum heat. Perhaps if he just waited long enough it would melt the ice without him having to do anything more. The delay in getting home would be more than worth it.

The sudden sound of scraping scrape snapped him out of his reverie. A clear strip had appeared on the passenger window. A moment later the movement repeated. Aziraphale couldn’t see clearly out of the narrow strip, but the blurred shape of a black-clad figure could be made out even through the ice.

He started, guiltily, and moved to help. He got as far as getting cracking the door open. Crowley, peering in through the wedge of window that he’d managed to clear, shook his head firmly and used his hip to shove the door closed again. Aziraphale, feeling obscurely chastened, sat meekly and watched his ever expanding view of Crowley laboring in what was rapidly turning from neat ice pellets into even more miserable wet sleet.

He finished all four side windows, the windshield, the stubborn bits that refused to melt on the back window, and even the side mirrors. Aziraphale, who had reached an almost meditative state as he watched the ice being systematically chipped away, startled as he opened the passenger door enough to look in, using his body to block the worst of the wind. “You’ll be needing this tomorrow morning,” he said, reaching in to drop the scraper on the floor.

“Oh, no, but you still have your own car to do—” Aziraphale protested.

“I’ve got two.”

Although it was impossible to tell against the black, Aziraphale was certain that his coat and hat must be getting rather damp, which couldn’t be helping. He had an unreasoning impulse to invite Crowley to join him in the car, to at least give him a chance to warm up before he had to do it all again for himself, but managed to stifle it; the poor man probably just wanted to get home, after all. Especially after he’d been delayed by saving an ill-equipped and incompetent colleague. “You quite rescued me, you know.” Crowley made a dismissive noise, but Aziraphale pressed on. “There must be some way for me to express my thanks.”

Crowley’s expression was still impossible to read under his layers, but the way he cocked his head was so strongly reminiscent of the quizzical look he’d given Aziraphale during their first awkward conversation in the shared airport car that he flushed with the memory of it. He made an odd little guttural noise before finding some words. “Cup of coffee sometime?”

Aziraphale found himself smiling, although he didn’t know why. “The best in town,” he promised.

Crowley sounded amused when he replied. “There are only two places in town.”

“And one of them is significantly better than the other,” Aziraphale said primly. “There’s no need to punish ourselves, even if the choices are limited.”

That earned him a laugh. “Sounds like a plan.” He seemed about to leave, but hesitated. “The roads’ll be slippery.”

“I can handle a little ice,” Aziraphale said. He was a bit surprised to find that the warmth from feeling looked out for was nearly outweighing the prickle of irritation at being second-guessed. “And it’s scarcely any distance at all, really.”

Crowley nodded. “Drive safe,” he said, and then with a final blast of frigid air the door was firmly closed and he was gone.

**

It was unquestionably the sign of devoted friend that they would come in on a Saturday to help you change out all the power strips and set more stringent sleep modes on all the devices in the lab.

At the moment, Crowley just wished his devoted friend were anyone but Anathema, if only because it was her fault that he was here on a Saturday morning to begin with.

Crowley had met the then brand new environmental studies professor slightly less than two years ago, when he’d barely avoided running her over with his car as her bike made a sudden swerve across traffic. They’d exchanged a few shouted impressions of each other’s driving skills and general situational awareness* and continued on their respective dashes to class.

*not positive

They apparently shared both the same morning teaching slot and a general proclivity to cutting it close; the same scene repeated the following week, and twice the week after. When Crowley arrived almost late to the faculty meeting a day later and found that the only empty seat on that side of the room was next to a young woman with long hair and a dramatic and rather odd coat, it seemed inevitable. He’d ignored her suspicious look long enough to introduce himself, and by the time the faculty president had finished her rather leisurely greeting and outline of the agenda, they’d exchanged numbers, spending the remainder of the meeting texting each other their commentary on their colleagues. Anathema may have been too new to know the backgrounds and the petty feuds, but her wit was sharp enough anyway, even if some of her comments tended rather toward the eccentric.

Crowley was already making a mental note to actually watch out for her bike in future—nobody else in the faculty would text with him during meetings anymore, so he’d better preserve this one—when she nodded a greeting at Nutter, the campus’s resident example of why faculty needed a mandatory retirement age, and explained that she’d been assigned as her faculty mentor. This, clearly, was too much to be born, and Crowley, who’d spent his first two years on campus developing a finely honed and perfectly calibrated ability to slither out of doing any additional work that wouldn’t go directly into his tenure file, appointed himself her unofficial but much more useful mentor.

Anathema had laughed at him. But she’d also texted him when she wasn’t sure how to talk to her chair about her teaching load, and let him take her out another week for coffee and strategizing low-effort but high-visibility committee assignments for her second year.

In turn, she’d wormed her way into his personal life with evident determination to stay, and he’d never found himself putting in the effort to try to evict her. There were worse things, after all, than someone who would haul him out for a drink after a particularly grueling department meeting, or share beer and pizza for an end-of-semester grading party. And if, when they made a shared trip to the city, she insisted on stopping at three increasingly extreme “natural” groceries, at least it gave Crowley something to complain about the whole way home.

But then, of course, there was the nagging about his lab. Anathema had been rather horrified, the first time she dropped by, at the sheer number of devices that were running. No number of assurances that he turned most of them off at night, as long as they weren’t busy running an analysis, had assuaged her feelings. It was when she’d bought him carbon offsets for his birthday that he caved. Crowley had stood firm in the face of many more skillful attempts to manipulate him, but it was Anathema’s whole-hearted and sincere distress that he couldn’t withstand.

So he’d taken the remnants of his expiring grant and bought the most energy-efficient power strips on the market, and dragged himself out of bed too early on a Saturday to come in and switch them out. But he’d be damned if he was going to suffer alone. Anathema had been agreeable and even brought coffee—something appallingly good for both the drinker and the planet, but it tasted decent enough.

The Saturday chores weren’t the real problem at the moment, though. Apparently giving in on one front just made Anathema latch onto another. And her quick wits could cut both ways, it appeared.

“You really should just ask him already.” The general tone was familiar enough—Anathema was a firm believer in going straight for what she wanted—but even this was unusually direct for her. She’d been poking around the topic of Aziraphale ever since she’d caught sight of Crowley leaving his house at the end of a long and convivial evening*, but had never tried a frontal assault before. She also generally distained discussing the dating lives of their friends or colleagues, hypothetical or otherwise, opining that it was one of the most tedious topics she could imagine.

*There were downsides to most of the faculty living within the same 8-block radius.

And yet she’d waited just until he’d crawled under a dusty table to note, casually, that he and Aziraphale seemed to be spending a lot of time observing the ducks, recently. Crowley’s non-committal grunt hadn’t deterred her at all, and she’d continued following her line of thought until arriving at this declaration.

“As him what,” Crowley muttered, trying to line the plug up with the outlet by feel and failing. As if he didn’t know perfectly well what she meant.

“Ask him _out_ already,” she said insistently. “You know. Not just wine at his place or clandestine picnics with the ducks or whatever it is you two do—”

“’m not picnicking with the ducks,” he protested, turning the plug upside down to see if that worked. It didn’t. He probably would have managed to sound more indignant about the accusation if he hadn’t also been picturing Aziraphale seated on a colorful blanket under the trees, laughing as Crowley threw lettuce. It was a stupid idea anyway. No one on campus would them get away with it undisturbed, for one thing. For another, he thought he might avoid the duck pond for approximately the rest of the year or so. “I’m giving them ecologically appropriate feed and showing those wankers in bio that they don’t know everything. And it’s not like drinking at his place is a thing or a habit or whatever.”

This was mostly true. It wasn’t something they did particularly often, or on any regular schedule. Whether it was a _thing_ , at least in the privacy of Crowley’s own head, was rather more ambiguous.

Crowley finally managed to get the prongs of the plug lined up and wedged into the outlet. He slid halfway back out from under the table, reaching out for Anathema to hand him the next one. “Take him out to dinner,” she insisted, even as he disappeared from sight again. “Somewhere nice. In the city. Don’t talk about work. Do tell him it’s a date.”

There was, perhaps, some blessing to being stuck in the dark and covered in dust bunnies if it meant that Anathema couldn’t see his face. “Aziraphale doesn’t want to go on a date with me.”

“No, see, that’s where you’re most definitely wrong.” He could just see her boots, following him as he scooted sideways a few feet to the next outlet. “I know _you_ don’t pay attention, but I see the way he looks at you. Convocation last month, all you had to do was nod at him and he lit right up. If you just asked—”

This was too much to be born. “I did ask,” he said, words clipped.

There was a pause. “And he said no?” Anathema sounded disbelieving.

Crowley hissed under his breath, feeling with his fingers to try to find the outlet, hoping he could at least get the cord the right way up this time. “Yep.”

“Aziraphale Fell turned down a date with you?”

There it was. Crowley jammed the plug in with a sense of grim triumph. “Not exactly a date,” he admitted. He slide out, brushing dust off of his face as he did, to meet Anathema’s grim and determined glare.

“What, precisely, are you talking about?” she demanded.

There was no hope for it. She dragged the entire story out of him ruthlessly, eyebrows raising higher at each detail that was revealed. At the end of it she sat there, perched on one of his tables, staring at him wordlessly.

“I know, I know,” Crowley said, leaning against the table opposite her. “I know it was too much and too fast, and I didn’t ask him right. And of course he said no, because he’s _not interested_ —and don’t give me that look, Device, I know that, ok, because believe it or not I did try way back when—but I just need to keep talking to him.”

“Is that really—”

“No, no,” he said, and he could tell his frustration at the whole thing was showing through. “I get it, I do. I know it’s a lot to ask, but he’s got to see reason. I’m going to fix this.”

“Crowley!” Anathema’s voice was a little too loud, but her eyes were gentle when he looked up to meet them. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“No, you were going to say that of course I scared him off, going from zero to sixty—”

“More like zero to lightspeed,” she cut him off. “Really, Crowley, asking him to marry you out of nowhere—”

“I know, I know,” he groaned. “I was going to lead up to it, I had a whole plan—”

“But that still isn’t what I was going to say,” she interrupted again. “Look, forget about Aziraphale’s job prospects for a moment. Is this what you want?”

Crowley looked up incredulously. “Course it’s what I want. Think I’d be trying this hard if I didn’t? The whole thing is stupid, making him leave when he’s the best—”

“ _Crowley_.” Her voice was insistent. “Not about Aziraphale. Do you even _want_ that job?”

He shrugged. “It’s a good school. Seems like a nice department. They have a little observatory and all, better than what we’ve got.”

Anathema still looked concerned. “I just didn’t think you were looking for a new job.”

“I wasn’t,” Crowley admitted. “But if it drops right into my lap, and it solves a problem—”

“Is there a problem, though?” She held up a hand to stop his reply. “I know, I know, about Aziraphale. But otherwise. Do you really have a problem being here? You’ve gotten grants. You have good students. You’re a shoo-in for tenure. You own a house! Why do you want to leave?”

He just stared at her for a minute. “I—I—look, first of all, even you have to admit that nobody really wants to live out here—”

“That’s a bit of a generalization—”

“And it’s not like my department is the picture of a nurturing environment, or whatever.”

“Since when have you ever cared about that?”

This was a good idea, dammit. Crowley tried to think quickly. “Just because I can handle it doesn’t mean I like it, Device. And they’d be letting me come in with early promotion, so I wouldn’t be starting from square one. Unless you think I can’t earn tenure again—”

“Of course that’s not it,” she snapped. “And I’m not telling you _not_ to take the job. It’s just, it’s a big decision, and it doesn’t seem like you’re really thought—”

“It’s not that big a deal,” Crowley said, feeling utterly fed up.

Anathema stared at him for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was much gentler. “You’d be leaving your job right on the verge of tenure, to move halfway across the country for a job you haven’t even interviewed for yet. Have you even talked to anyone besides the chair?”

“The dean,” Crowley muttered.

“But you don’t even know the rest of the department. And that’s not to mention getting legally entangled with someone because it seemed expedient. Look, I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. Just—” she hesitated, uncharacteristically unsure, then hurried on. “I’m sorry about Aziraphale, I really am. But it’s not really your problem to fix. Have you actually thought about whether this is a good idea for you?”

“I’m not—” he sputtered. “Of course I did. I’m not some self-sacrificing martyr or something.”

“Really?” She let that hang there for a long moment. “Look, I just want you to think about it. _Actually_ think about it.”

Crowley sighed. He knew when he was defeated. “Sure, fine. I will.”

She watched him intently for another silent moment, then slid briskly to her feet. “Right, well, if that’s all the power strips, we should get on to the sleep settings.”

Maybe Anathema wasn’t the very worst friend one could have around on a Saturday morning, Crowley admitted, signing into a series of computers so that Anathema could fiddle with their settings. Even if she did ask annoying and inconvenient questions.

**

“Aziraphale!” A voice boomed out of the open office door. Aziraphale tried and failed to conceal his flinch, pasted an approximation of a smile on his face, and backtracked a couple of steps until he could look in and see Gabriel, who’d turned away from the pair of monitors perched on his standing desk to watch Aziraphale’s approach. “Come on in. I wanted a word.”

“Good afternoon,” Aziraphale said politely, ignoring the way his stomach clenched at the words. It was utterly ridiculous, after all, to be frightened of his department chair. He took the chair that Gabriel waved him into; after a long moment, during which Aziraphale was afraid he planned to stand the whole time, he settled leisurely into his own chair. It still put him at least a head higher.

Aziraphale wanted to ask whether anything was wrong, but that way led only to an affirmative response, with the appropriate scolding to follow, or a mini lecture on the power of positive thinking and how assuming the worst would always make it true*, so he quashed the impulse and sat there, biting his lip, until Gabriel finally spoke.

* In this specific instance, at least, this was an accurate prediction.

“How’re things going? Semester off to a good start?”

That, at least, Aziraphale had an answer to. “Yes, I think so. The intro students are still adjusting and take a fair amount of time, of course, but they’ve still got that new enthusiasm, which is always rather nice.”

Gabriel’s face twisted slightly. “Freshmen are just so needy.” Aziraphale made a noncommittal humming noise, and Gabriel broke out into his stiff and gleaming smile. “Better you than me. And how’s your other class? Aquatic biology or something, isn’t it?”

“Invertebrate zoology. Going quite well, so far,” Aziraphale said, with a somewhat more genuine smile. “It can be a bit difficult to get them engaged in biodiversity courses, but I’m finding that with some additional contextual framework and an emphasis on phylogenetic thinking—” Gabriel was clearly uninterested in the pedagogical details, and he cut himself off with some difficulty. “Yes, it’s going well. It’s a good group.”

“Good, good. Our students count a lot on those upper levels. Keeps them on their toes, you know. Can’t let it get too easy for them, after all, or what’s the point?” _Learning,_ perhaps, Aziraphale thought dryly, but he knew better than to say it out loud. Apparently he was going to have to keep an eye on his class averages this semester, if Gabriel was on the lookout for anything approaching grade inflation.

Gabriel himself was now leaning back in his chair, spreading his elbows a little, a clear sign that he was about to move on to the real point of the conversation. “So, Aziraphale. I didn’t know that you’d submitted a proposal for a faculty grant.”

Ah. Aziraphale had definitely meant to send him an email about that, hadn’t he? A quick note was a rather reasonable expectation, he supposed. “Er, yes.” Gabriel seemed to be expecting rather more. “I did. Er, if I forgot to mention, how did you. . .”

“Sandalphon’s on the awards committee.” Gabriel waved the point aside, apparently unconcerned by the notion that evaluation of the awards was supposed to be confidential. “So you’re after, what, some instrumentation?”

“Er, yes,” Aziraphale said. It was probably a trap, but he couldn’t see any way out but through. “I have a student who wants to do an independent study, got quite interested in a project that I’d been thinking about for some time now. But there are a couple of new pieces of equipment needed. The total cost isn’t all that high—”

“Now, now, Aziraphale,” Gabriel interrupted, a note in his voice that made Aziraphale bristle, although he forced himself to let it go. Gabriel was his chair, after all, which made it his job to advise and guide, and he could hardly be blamed if the tone of his voice reflected that. “I appreciate your enthusiasm. You know that. That kind of go-getter attitude is what we like to see. Would have been happy to see a bit more of it a year or two ago.”

“I, er, yes, well,” Aziraphale stumbled. He had, in fact, applied for and received faculty grants for the past three years running; small ones, intended only to fund his little pedagogical studies. Too insignificant for Gabriel to remember, perhaps. “I did, actually, apply—”

“The thing is,” Gabriel interrupted again, apparently not even noticing that Aziraphale had spoken at all. “I’m just not sure that in this case there’ll be enough usage to justify the expenditure.”

“We’re planning on collecting the samples this winter, and then doing the lab work and analyzing the results throughout spring semester,” Aziraphale said quickly. “The first round of results should be ready by the deadline for summer fellowship applications—if they turn out to be interesting, we’d discussed potentially continuing—”

“Hmm,” Gabriel said, not particularly encouragingly. “It sounded like rather specialized equipment. Not something anyone else in the department would be using. Rather a large investment for a single student project.”

“Oh, I have a number of uses in mind, both for my own research and for teaching—” Gabriel cleared his throat pointedly, and Aziraphale stumbled to a halt. His chair’s expression was unyielding, with just a hint of the same sickening attempt at sympathy he’d had during their last conversation in this office. This was the final clue Aziraphale needed. He dropped his eyes to the gleaming surface of Gabriel’s desk, mercilessly clear of anything to anchor his gaze on, and tried hopelessly to stop the flush that was climbing up his neck.

He should have realized. Why _would_ anyone want to invest in him after this year, anyhow?

“Oh, Aziraphale. I know you mean well, I really do.” Gabriel’s smile was something approaching kindly, although it did little to counter the disappointment in his voice and vague pity in his eyes. “But I wish you’d talked to me first. I know you don’t really want to be selfish like that. Take away funding that could be used to help the whole department.”

“But it’s not departmental funds,” Aziraphale protested faintly. “I wouldn’t have expected—faculty grants are a separate pool—”

“But Biology’s applied for equipment funding too,” Gabriel said firmly. “Uriel needs new laptops for the Genetics lab. She put together a very nice proposal for them.”

 _You mean Uriel needs the grant to go on her promotion file,_ Aziraphale thought bitterly. The old set of laptops was still perfectly adequate. And they only used them two or three times a year, anyway.

“Something that will really benefit more than just a single student. And the whole department. For years to come,” Gabriel was droning on. “I was sure you’d understand.”

He thought about arguing, he really did. Thought about pointing out that it was up to the awards committee to decide what to fund, not a department chair. That his grant, which was only for two thousand dollars, could hardly steal all the funding for a set of twenty-five new laptops.

But what was the point?

“Of course, Gabriel,” he said quietly, forcing a small smile, even though he couldn’t make himself look up to meet his gaze. “I’ll withdraw the application.”

“Great. That’s great. I knew you’d be a team player. Oh, and along those lines,” he added. Aziraphale, who’d been certain he was just about to make his escape, eased himself back down into the chair. “I hardly even know what all you _do_ have in that lab of yours. Gotta keep track of those departmental resources, you know. Make sure they end up where they’re most useful. Think you could do up an inventory for me? Sometime this month?”

That was a blow that Aziraphale couldn’t help but show, a tensing and a flinch back into his chair. He recovered as quickly as he could, but the expression in Gabriel’s eyes when he flicked a glance up to check said clearly that he’d caught it. Bad enough to know that nobody wanted to pretend he had a future here. Worse to think of them divvying up the lab he’d once assembled so hopefully, without even the mercy to wait until he’d left campus.

Still, there wasn’t any other answer he could give. “Yes, of course,” he said quietly. The clock behind Gabriel was now reading quarter till, and at least that provided him the excuse he needed. “I’m sorry, I have office hours—”

“Go on,” Gabriel said, dismissing him with a nod. “Glad I caught you for this little chat.”

“Yes, quite. Thank you, Gabriel,” Aziraphale managed, moving more quickly than was quite decorous to make it to the door and out, putting as much distance between them as he could, he feet carrying him automatically back through familiar hallways. Instead of turning left into his office, though, he selected a different key and unlocked the door across the hall.

His lab space had never been the most impressive in the department, lacking the size and gleaming perfection of labs like Gabriel’s or Michael’s. It was the only faculty lab in this wing of the building, which had been passed over in the most recent set of renovations, so it still had a slightly worn feeling, with the old wooden cabinets that squealed when you opened them and the benchtops that were scarred and stained from years of experiments.

But Aziraphale had found that he liked it from the moment he first set foot inside. It had a large south-facing window that flooded it with sunlight at midday, and, rather absurdly, a skylight in the ceiling, which only occasionally leaked. There was room enough to set up a saltwater system for his tanks along one side, with specimen cabinets crammed together against the other wall. And his microscopes, even the confocal that was the product of his first equipment grant and his pride and joy since his first year, hardly cared whether the counters they sat on were pristine or not.

He turned on his heel, surveying the space. He’d become accustomed to thinking of it as his comfortable little kingdom, but when he tried to look at it from Gabriel’s perspective, the illusion fell away. The scratches on the laminate floor, which he’d undoubtedly contributed to. The clear glass dishes stacked in somewhat haphazard piles on the shelves and the counters near the sink. The large carboy of distilled water, almost empty and in severe need of being wheeled down the hallway to be refilled in one of labs that was equipped with a tap. The box of samples that had never been sorted into the appropriate drawers, sitting out gathering dust next to a stack of acid-free cards for labelling that had toppled over some time ago and were still scattered across the counter.

It had always seemed like a cozy and pleasant space, the clutter merely evidence of busy workers happily engaged in their assorted projects. Somewhere Aziraphale and his students could contribute their crumb of knowledge to the broad picture of natural history. Now, though, he saw it as it was. No wonder Gabriel thought that any additional resources would be wasted in his hands.

Oh, now really. He blinked suddenly stinging eyes. He simply had to get ahold of himself. He had office hours in a few minutes, after all, and he could hardly present himself to students like this. Besides, self-pity wouldn’t accomplish anything. No, far better to spend the spare minutes until students might arrive tidying up a bit. He’d hardly be able to finish that inventory with the lab in this state, after all.

Footsteps approached from down the hall and he stiffened, smoothing his coat and adjusting his bowtie before managing to ease his face into a more neutral expression suitable for a student arriving a few minutes early for office hours.

It wasn’t a student’s voice that he heard, however. “Aziraphale?” The footsteps slowed as Crowley peered into his empty office, then came closer as he found the open door. “There you are.”

“Crowley, my dear,” Aziraphale said, running on autopilot as he tried not to look frantically around at the mess. His brain didn’t catch up to the words until he registered Crowley’s inquisitively raised eyebrow. He flushed and hurried on. “So sorry, we can just go over to my office.”

Crowley shrugged, slowly sauntering in entirely the wrong direction—not back towards the door but around the central bench, away from where Aziraphale was standing. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in your lab before,” he said, peering at the benchtop and the shelves in a way that made Aziraphale flush even more deeply and turn his eyes down to his clasped hands. His slow saunter had carried him to the other end of the room by now (it wasn’t like there was far to go), and he was studying the saltwater tanks. Aziraphale only had one student actually doing a project this semester, and only about a quarter of them were actually filled.

“It’s not much,” he said, wishing he could figure out how to more effectively usher Crowley out the door. “I mean, not to complain, it’s more than adequate, even if I haven’t really—”

“I like it,” Crowley cut him off casually. “’s more interesting than my lab anyway. All I’ve got is computers. Useful, but not exciting.” He frowned down into one of the tanks. “That can’t be a barnacle.”

“Ah, no.” Without conscious decision, Aziraphale’s feet carried him around the room so that he could stand next to Crowley, both peering into the tanks. “I have a student who’s interested in bioremediation, so we’re testing the ability of oysters to filter out certain contaminants found in our local tidal waterways.”

That earned a quirked smile. “How’s it going so far?”

His smile felt more natural this time. “The preliminary data are looking fairly interesting. I do hope she may get a publication out of it.”

“And you told me you didn’t have a research program going,” Crowley said, but there wasn’t any bite to the words. He gave up on the tank—Aziraphale couldn’t blame him, oysters weren’t particularly engaging to watch—and continued his circuit of the room. Aziraphale swore he could feel the heat of him against his back as he edged past in the narrow space between him and the central table, and tried to suppress his shiver. And the fleeting impulse to lean back and see what it would be like to feel the heat of his body for real. Even if there had ever been a time for that sort of thing, which there probably hadn’t, it had definitely passed now. What with the mess he’d made of it all.

Crowley eyed the microscopes, one eyebrow raising in a vaguely impressed manner, but he didn’t comment on them. He ended up back where he’d started, leaning back against the counter. It was impossible to tell, with his glasses, where he was looking. Aziraphale’s nerves returned at full force, and he found himself rocking slightly on his feet.

“It isn’t really much, I know,” he said, slightly desperately. “I haven’t really invested in it as much as as—well, I put most of my startup into the flow-through setup, and the scopes, and I haven’t written a major grant in a while. Since I got the confocal. I really ought—”

Now Crowley was frowning faintly and definitely looking around, and Aziraphale felt himself flushing. He was such a fool.

All Crowley said, though, in an even voice, was “I like it. It’s—it’s nice.”

Idiotically, that only made Aziraphale flush even more, surely enough to be noticeable. “I’m afraid I’m really not reaching the potential—”

“You’ve got research going,” Crowley interrupted, nodding at the tanks. “A student-designed project, too. Anyway, that isn’t the research I came to talk to you about.”

“I—” Aziraphale was lost. “Research? To talk about?”

“I had a few questions,” Crowley said. He waved the rolled-up papers that Aziraphale only just now noticed he was holding, as if it would explain everything. Aziraphale just looked at him in confusion, and he huffed and went on. “They’ve got group projects for lab. And there’s always _this person didn’t do the work_ , _this person never got back to me_ , _I shouldn’t lose points for that because someone else wrote it._ You know. I was hoping to avoid the worst of it this year, and I know you’re supposed to give groups structure and roles, but I want them to learn how to do everything. And make sure the women don’t always end up as the group’s record keeper or whatever the hell other jobs they come up with.”

“Right,” Aziraphale said, feeling rather less adrift, if still somewhat confused at the abrupt turn in the conversation. “The perennial problems, of course.”

“So, I’m a scientist, I can do this, I went looking for the research,” Crowley said, not paying much attention. “And, you know, most of it is unreadable. Or so abstract it’s no actual help at all.”

“Well, when it’s not your field it can be a bit obscure—”

“But then I found this,” Crowley went on, waving the papers again, now unfurled. “On group work and getting the students to manage their own problems so that they don’t need to get the professor involved at all and he can do his own work and grade exams in peace.”

The journal header across the top of the papers that he was still gesturing with was deeply familiar, even across the room, and suddenly the entire conversation began to make a bit more sense. “That’s not quite how I would have put it,” Aziraphale murmured. “Supporting the development of a toolkit to enable students to productively respond to challenges in group dynamics more independently.”

“Close enough,” Crowley brushed the fine distinctions away.

“So you found my little paper,” Aziraphale said, still trying to figure out why all this had brought Crowley to his door. Only one reason really occurred to him. “You’d like me to explain it to you?”

“I know it probably seems basic to you.” Crowley shrugged. “It’s your field, after all. But _I’m_ not an expert. I could use a little help.”

“Oh, of course,” Aziraphale said, a little flustered. “The sample size wasn’t particularly large, I admit, but the results—a bit preliminary, I’m afraid—did indicate that the students who went through the toolkit training were more self-sufficient at addressing problems that did arise.”

That earned him another flashing frown, although he wasn’t sure why. “I know. I did read it, you know. I said I wasn’t an expert, but I can still understand a p-value.”

“So,” Aziraphale said, feeling lost again.

“I had some questions.” Crowley brandished the papers again, and squinting at them Aziraphale could see that they were marked with underlined portions and marginal annotations in a bright red pen. “Especially about integrating your toolkit thing with self-assigned group roles. Maybe rotating roles. In a lab context.”

“Ah, right.” It was certainly an interesting question, and half of Aziraphale’s brain was already wondering off, contemplating some possibilities. There were surely some promising options for tying role assignments to student self-assessments, at a minimum. Unfortunately, dividing his attention didn’t stop his mouth from going on its own merry little way. “Although I wouldn’t really call myself an expert in the area. I’ve only done the one little study—well, and another, although it hardly counts—and building student skills through group work was hardly an original idea. I’m more than happy to help, of course, if I can, but really I imagine you can figure it out as well as I.”

At some point during this speech Crowley had dropped his papers—when they spread out over the counter Aziraphale could see that he actually had several, all annotated, goodness—and taken the few steps back around the lab to hover at the corner of the center bench nearest Aziraphale, now regarding him intently from that much closer distance.

“Fell,” he said, just enough of gentle mockery in his voice to catch Aziraphale’s attention. “You literally wrote the paper. I managed to get through it, but only because you’re a good writer. When you’ve edited it heavily, anyway.” He smirked and Aziraphale had to echo the smile at the memory of the few months that he’d served as minute taker for the faculty meetings. He’d been given to understand, after he was invited to step down from the role, that his tenure had been the shortest in college history. They were, he still maintained, also the most thorough and well-annotated minutes the college had ever seen. “You are, obviously, the expert here. And care about it a lot more than most of the people around here. Myself included. And I could use your help.”

Throughout the little speech Aziraphale had been caught in the intensity of Crowley’s look, the eyes that were just visible behind his glasses from this distance. At the close of it, though, he had to look away, worrying at his own lip as he tried to come up with a reply. He still had the reflexive urge to argue, but had lost the heart for it. “Well, I, I don’t know. I mean—”

Crowley drew back slightly, pulling in all of that somewhat terrifying regard and tucking it away somewhere. Aziraphale thought, not for the first time, that all of his students must be captivated when he really got going. And probably half in love with him. At a conservative estimate. The withdrawal of that focus felt something like being cast into shadow when a cloud crossed over the sun. “Right, course. You have real work to do.” He managed another smirk, which was very nearly convincing but didn’t quite hit the mark. “Don’t worry about it. The paper was great. I’ll do some more reading. Figure something out.”

A number of things fell suddenly and cleanly into place. A calm certainty settled over Aziraphale. He’d felt this way few times in his life, but there was no questioning it now. Not when the path forward was so clear. Oh, he’d been a fool. But perhaps there would still be time to make it right.

He’d paused, in this moment of revelation, and apparently Crowley had taken it as confirmation of the conclusion he’d jumped to. “Right, well,” he was saying, stopping to collect his papers and backing towards the door. “See you around.”

“No, Crowley, wait—” Aziraphale tried to dodge around the bench and stop him, but ended up just banging his hip against it rather painfully. It was enough to stop Crowley, at least, who turned to look at him in apparent concern.

“Nah, really, you don’t have to worry about it,” he said, as Aziraphale waved aside his worried look. “Course you’re busy. We all are.”

“No, no, it’s not about the paper,” Aziraphale said somewhat breathlessly, taking a few more steps towards Crowley, scarcely limping at all. “I mean, of course we can talk about the paper. And your class. Whenever you want to. I’d love to. But, _Crowley_ —” He hadn’t planned the next few words, and now they seemed impossible. He’d been _such_ a fool.

“Mmm?”

“You—you made me a, a very generous offer, the other day,” Aziraphale managed. Crowley clearly wanted to protest, but he waved it aside. A few more steps forward, and he was back within a range where he could see at least a hint of what Crowley’s eyes were doing under his glasses. At the moment they seemed to be fixed on Aziraphale, brows pinched as if afraid of what he might say next. “I was terribly rude, though, I’m afraid, especially in our second conversation.”

That, apparently, was more than Crowley could take. “You really weren’t, you know. ‘s not like you have to say yes to every random marriage proposal you get.”

Aziraphale had to stop and swallow hard at the words. Even after Crowley’s joke about getting down on one knee, he’d been trying to stop himself from thinking of it all in that context. Even now, _especially_ now, he couldn’t let that slip. This was, as Crowley himself had said, merely a very practical arrangement. That was all.

“Well, I _am_ sorry. I wouldn’t blame you at all if you’d had enough of me, after that. But, well, if you haven’t—” Crowley’s eyes had widened in evident surprise, which gave Aziraphale the courage to go on. “Only if you’re still amenable. But I do think there is merit in the idea. It’s far more than I could expect of you, of course. But if you’re certain that you still—”

Crowley’s smile now was genuine, no hint of the self-deprecating smirk of earlier. “Sounds like you could use a little reassurance,” he all but purred. At some point, Aziraphale wasn’t sure when, he’d managed to edge a great deal closer, and now when he put out a hand out to lean against the table it was close enough that Aziraphale could have covered with his own, just by reaching out.

He clasped his hands more tightly in front of himself, letting his fingers fret across each other. “I, I wasn’t trying to, er, elicit any—that is, I merely meant to make it clear that I had reconsidered my own position—”

“Stop that,” Crowley said. He, rather unexpected, actually reached up and slid the glasses off of his face, setting them down on the table with a click. Aziraphale had thought that his regard was intense before, but it was nothing to the look he was getting now. “Like you said, I never actually asked.”

“No,” Aziraphale agreed, finding himself rather breathless, helpless to look away.

“Well, then.” Crowley straightened up from his lean, and for a moment Aziraphale was certain that he was going to make good on his earlier threat—promise—and go down on one knee, but instead he just stood there, eyes locked on Aziraphale’s. “Wanna get hitched?”

Aziraphale’s mouth fell open, the remaining air in his lungs emerging in an offended huff. “That’s your idea of a—a—proposal of marriage?”

Oh, but he loved the look of cheerful mischief dancing in those golden eyes. “You didn’t seem to like either of my earlier attempts, figured I’d try a new strategy.”

Aziraphale huffed again, fighting the smile that tried to curl his own lips. “Well, I’m not certain you deserve it now, but—yes. I would be most agreeable, if you think it would suit.”

“Most agreeable?” Crowley said under his breath, in a rather poor imitation of Aziraphale. “And you want to complain about my technique?”

“One of us, at least, should maintain a proper sense of decorum,” Aziraphale said primly. It was a sharp contrast to his inner thoughts, which had veered into a rather too vivid image of what it would be like to celebrate their—he supposed he ought to call it an engagement—like a real couple would. He could imagine Crowley’s mobile, rather fascinating lips against his own so clearly he could almost feel it. That clever tongue, tracing along his own, or moving to explore further, the corner of his jaw or down along his neck—

Crowley’s amused little noise and raised eyebrow shook Aziraphale out of his thoughts and made him realized that his cheeks must be rather flushed again. That was quite enough of that. This was, after all, a professional arrangement, if a somewhat clandestine one. Aziraphale had plenty of practice being strictly professional. True, it might be slightly harder to maintain this time, but that just meant that there would be more virtue in success. “Yes, well, very well, about your class—”

“Professor Fell?” A voice interrupted the fragments that had been passing for a train of thought. He leaned around Crowley to see a student, looking hesitant and slightly confused, peering around the door. “I’m sorry to interrupt, it’s just, you weren’t in your office. . .”

Aziraphale managed an approximation of a calm smile. “Yes, of course, Emily. My apologies. I’ll be right with you.” She smiled back at him and ducked back out the door. “Office hours,” he said apologetically to Crowley. “I’d better—”

“Go,” Crowley agreed. “Take out and evidence-based pedagogical strategies, your place, this evening?”

Aziraphale nodded, grateful for the suggestion. Perhaps they would suit quite well, after all. He allowed himself a moment of indulgence, watching Crowley walk down the hall away from him, then turned towards his office and the rest of his day.

**

**Physics, CS and Math Building**

**November, four years ago**

Crowley had spent all of Thursday morning so far glaring at problem sets and wishing viciously that it were Friday instead. At least then he’d be able to look forward to grading in the comfort of his own home all weekend, instead of slouching uncomfortably in what passed for an ergonomic office chair at the price point that the department was willing to authorize while wondering why none of his students seemed to remember how to apply any of the equations they’d learned in the past week.

He was hardly disappointed, then, when his attempt to explain the correct answer in few enough words that they’d fit in the margin was interrupted by a knock on his mostly closed office door. It opened before he could respond, but any irritation at the presumption evaporated when he saw that it was Aziraphale, who was using his foot to nudge it carefully open. One arm was full of a pile of papers precariously balanced on top of his laptop, while the other held a cardboard tray with two travel cups in it.

“Crowley!” He sounded pleased to see him, as he always did. Crowley would have been tempted to read something into it if he hadn’t heard him address a wide variety of students, the departmental staff, and even Newton Pulsifer, who nobody could ever actually be that happy to see, in more or less the same tone.

“Fell—Aziraphale,” he corrected himself. Even he wasn’t so much of an ass as to insist on his small attempt at keeping his distance when Aziraphale had repeatedly requested the opposite. “Morning.”

“Good morning!” This time Crowley was treated to his full, beaming smile, and found himself, as always, helpless not to return it. “I brought—” He gestured vaguely with the hand holding the cups. The stack in his other arm trembled threateningly, and Crowley found himself holding his breath, but Aziraphale simply gave it an irritated look and somehow managed to resettle it without losing anything. “The coffee I owed you,” he went on cheerfully. “I stopped in this morning and realized I didn’t know what you like. I would have _texted—”_ There was an oddly proud note to his voice, as if he were pleased with himself for having even had the thought— “But I don’t seem to have your number. But it turned out that they knew you perfectly well from my description, and the very pleasant young woman working there knew exactly what you would want.”

“Right.” Crowley watched, a little bit blankly, as Aziraphale set the tray down on the corner of his desk and lifted one of the cups out of it, setting it nearer to him before picking up the tray, with its single remaining cup. “Um. Thanks.”

Aziraphale’s pleased smile flickered. “Oh dear. I hope it wasn’t, er, creepy or anything. I didn’t mean to pry, you understand, it’s just when I said that I was getting it for a friend but didn’t know what you would want—”

“No, no,” Crowley said quickly, waving a hand dismissively and carefully watching Aziraphale’s expression out of the corner of his eye. “Not at all.”

He brightened again. “Good. I really can’t thank you enough, you know, for the other day. I was quite helpless, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sure you’d have managed.” Crowley was surprised to find that he meant it—the sight of Aziraphale staring forlornly at his windshield, without so much as a hat or a pair of gloves to protect him from the bitter weather, had been pitiful enough to engender sympathy even from someone who didn’t have the same interest that Crowley did, and yet he was confident that Aziraphale would have figured something out in the end.

“Still. You were very kind.” Aziraphale was _still_ smiling, ignoring Crowley’s involuntary wince at the word. But then he glanced at his watch, face falling slightly. “Oh dear, I really must be going, I have class. Do enjoy the coffee,” he added over his shoulder.

Crowley, looking from the cup on his desk to Aziraphale’s rapidly retreating back, couldn’t have found the words to say that this wasn’t precisely what he had meant, even if he’d had the chance to get them out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took longer than expected, but time, energy and focus have all been scarce of late. Hope all of you are doing well and staying safe!


	4. Chapter 4

**March, three and a half years ago**

Crowley didn’t bother to knock, just banged his way into the office. Fell was, fortunately, alone, looking up from his laptop in startlement as the door opened.

“Crowley, what a pleasant—”

“We need to talk about Jordan Amboy,” Crowley said, cutting him off ruthlessly.

“Ah.” Aziraphale took of his glasses—Crowley still wasn’t sure how much he really needed them, they seemed more like an affectation but who wore glasses they didn’t even need?—folded them, and set them carefully on his desk, keeping his eyes fixed on them even after they were safely in place. “Yes. He’s your advisee, isn’t he.”

“I just got a progress report. Why does he have a C- in your intro class? He’s one of the brightest students I’ve had, you can’t tell me he’s been failing the exams.”

Aziraphale’s gaze was now focused on his hands, which were fidgeting restlessly in his lap. “Well, you see—”

“You know he’s premed,” Crowley cut him off ruthlessly. “The GPA requirements—”

“He’s missed too many classes,” Aziraphale said quickly, with something of the air of someone ripping off a band aid. “More than three absences results in a lowered grade for the course, more than six is an automatic fail.”

“What.” Crowley’s voice was flat.

Aziraphale finally looked up at him, then seemed to quail away from what he saw there, looking hurriedly away again, gaze now fixed at a point on the wall behind him. “It was in the syllabus,” he said quietly.

“You’re failing him because of an _attendance policy_?” Crowley shook his head. Better to stay focused. “Look, he’s got to be doing fine in everything else in the class.”

“Yes. Quite well, in fact.”

“Ok, so, you can make an exception.”

Aziraphale’s jaw firmed in evident determination. “No.”

Crowley groaned loudly. “Come on, Fell. Look, he was telling me. His roommate’s a nightmare, keeps him up half the night, he sleeps through his alarm sometimes in the morning. I know you want them in class to do the work, but I’ll guarantee he’ll make up anything he’s missed.”

Aziraphale’s lips were pursed unpromisingly. “I’m sorry, Crowley, but I can’t. Unless there’s an accommodation or a medical situation, I can’t make any exceptions. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the class.”

“What’s not fair is failing a student because his roommate’s a jerk and he can’t get reassigned.” Crowley only realized when Aziraphale shied away slightly that he was gesturing maybe a bit too expansively. Instead he edged closer to the desk until he could lean against it, resting his weight on the heels of his hands and looking down at his target. Aziraphale’s eyes widened minutely, and not in alarm. “It’s your attendance policy,” he said, letting his voice settle into the softer, more enticing lilt that he relied on to get things done when he couldn’t yell at someone. “Your classroom. Give him some extra credit or something. You can make an exception if you want to.”

It did not have the desired effect. Rather than melting, as about half the recipients of Crowley’s attempts did, Aziraphale sat himself straighter in his chair, making a surprisingly definitive slicing motion with his hand. “No. It’s absolutely out of the question.”

“Fell—”

“It isn’t my attendance policy, anyway. It’s the department’s.”

Now that was news to Crowley. “You have a departmental attendance policy?”

“For the core courses, yes. For consistency, you see. And to ensure students are held to a high standard of rigor before proceeding into the upper level courses.” Aziraphale sounded rather like he was reciting something that he’d been told many times. “Regular attendance is necessary for successful learning—”

“But he is learning,” Crowley said impatiently. “You said it yourself.”

“There’s nothing I can do.” Aziraphale sounded closer to the brink of tears than the implacable certainty he seemed to be trying for. “It’s really out of my hands, I’m afraid.”

Crowley, frustrated, turned away. “You’re not doing them any good like this, you know. The whole lot of you can be as smug as you like, but you’re not actually doing anybody any good.”

Aziraphale made no reply.

**

Aziraphale generally had highly unreliable reception in his office*, so when he’d finally eased the last student out and closed the door, he reached for his office phone instead of his cell, dialing the one extension he knew by heart. 7-7-2-5, and then there were a couple of rings and a familiar and dearly appreciated voice saying, “Marjorie Potts.”

*The sole reason he’d steadfastly refused to switch carriers, even though he was pretty sure he was overpaying for his plan. 

Originally, Aziraphale and Marjorie had been rather thrown together by the process of elimination rather than any inherent interest in each other. One of the other new faculty members had decided to throw a holiday party to celebrate getting through their first semester. Marjorie, who had been invited by virtue of being the host’s faculty advisor, was somewhat at loose ends, as she hadn’t yet met many younger generation. Aziraphale was in the same boat, because Crowley wasn’t there.

Aziraphale had fallen back on an old standard and attempted to lurk in the kitchen. This was complicated by the blonde woman who simply wouldn’t leave, coming up with ever-more-flimsy excuses for staying, and forcing him to do the same. It was only when he decided that he’d better find the corkscrew to leave it out for the next person, since he’d come rather close to finishing off that bottle of the red, and they—or the person after them—would surely want to open another bottle, that Marjorie started laughing, and decided to introduce herself instead. Aziraphale had been rather stiff at first, especially after the laughter, but it was remarkably hard to be standoffish with Marjorie, particularly once she got into some of the stories of the more absurd things some of her students in her social psychology class had come out with.

The evening was, overall, considerably more convivial than Aziraphale had feared, if rather less successful in his initial goal of getting better acquainted with his cohort. At the end of the night he’d offered to walk Marjorie home; she’d laughed again but accepted his offer kindly enough. The chance that it would have been a pleasant but passing acquaintance was prevented entirely by the discovery that she lived immediately next door to the house that Aziraphale had closed on just the week prior.

This could easily have become quite awkward—Aziraphale was deeply private at heart, and Marjorie was _not_ —but their genuine liking for each other, coupled with sheer determination and the fact that Aziraphale did, in fact, need some friendly company sometimes, were able to overcome any stumbling blocks. It was quite pleasant, after all, to know that if one baked rather too many cookies there would be an appreciative recipient right at hand, and to have a sympathetic and largely disinterested ear into which to pour the various frustrations inherent in being a junior faculty member in the biology department. Marjorie was always an interested listener, and effortlessly collected the gossip of the college, but she was also guarded with it, happy to know without needing to share. Over time, as Aziraphale learned to trust her discretion, he became less and less cautious in his censoring and more reliant on her advice.

Now he poured the whole story out, pacing back and forth along the few steps around the corner of the desk that the leash of the phone cord would allow. “And then I said yes. I have no idea what came over me. The entire idea is mad.”

Marjorie hummed sympathetically. “It is a bit unusual, dear. But if you think the offer was made in good faith—”

“Of course it was!” His response should, perhaps, have required more thought—Crowley had thrived in a notoriously self-serving and devious department, and certainly had done a number of devious things of his own to succeed there—but Aziraphale was completely certain of it. He still wasn’t sure what Crowley thought he would gain from the arrangement, but he was confident that whatever benefit he anticipated, it wouldn’t be to Aziraphale’s detriment.

“Then I don’t really see a reason why not,” Marjorie said practically. “If you went on the market yourself you’d still have to sell your place and move anyway. Two faculty salaries should be plenty to live on—you’d be able to save quite a bit more than living on your own. From your perspective, it wouldn’t be that different from having a roommate. Unless you wanted to add some extra benefits, I suppose,” she added, pragmatic but for the hint of wickedness underneath.

“Marjorie,” Aziraphale managed, in tones that he was pretty sure weren’t noticeably different from the ones he’d usually use to respond to her innuendos. At least she wasn’t here to see the furious blush that he knew was spreading across his face. “I’m quite sure _that_ wasn’t what he was thinking of.”

She hummed skeptically, but dropped the matter for the moment. “If that’s not the question, then I’m still not sure why it has you in such a tizzy.”

Aziraphale had to stop and think, in response to that one. The answer, of course, wasn’t nearly as simple as he wanted it to be. “I don’t want it to backfire on him. Bad enough, seeming friendly.”

There was silence for a moment. “Aziraphale. . .”

“We’ve gotten lucky so far,” he said, voice small. “That nobody’s ever noticed and thought much of it."

Marjorie tutted, and Aziraphale could picture her gently scolding expression perfectly. It was a familiar enough sight, generally whenever he was trying to express an unpleasant but unavoidable truth. Something she was more likely to call _selling yourself short_. “Your department isn’t a bed of roses, duck, I know.” Aziraphale privately thought that beautiful to look at but painful on contact was actually a pretty decent descriptor, but he knew what she meant. “And I know they don’t get on that well with physics, but even your chairs can’t actually do anything to prevent you from having whatever friends you like.”

“It’s not that.” He wound his fingers in the phone cord—an advantage, as far as he was concerned, of the rather elderly phones that were issued to faculty offices—tugging gently against it, rather enjoying the pressure of the coils around his fingers. The words came spilling out. “It’s just. I know what people think about me. I don’t really usually say it directly, but—I know that they make assumptions.”

There was a pause, and then a softer noise. “I’d like to tell you you’re wrong, dear,” Marjorie said.

“Exactly,” Aziraphale said, with grim determination. “And I’m not generally too fussed, but it does make being a gentleman and appearing to be a particular friend of mine a rather risky proposition.”

Another pause. “People might jump to conclusions,” she said, apparently picking her words carefully. Wonderful. He never meant to say anything that made her feel she had to tiptoe around his feelings. “But I don’t know that you could properly call it a risk.” Then, more worried, “Has anyone bothered you?”

Aziraphale thought of the looks at his clothing or sporadic encouragements to “man up.” The undoubtedly unintentional comments that Gabriel made sometimes, unaware of how they might sound. “It’s not that, exactly,” he said carefully. “I’m quite lucky, to be here, you know. Academia is—well, it’s better. Than many places, you know.”

“Mmm,” Marjorie said. She didn’t sound particularly convinced, but she let the matter drop. “What is it, then, love?”

“It’s more, well.” He paused, knowing that making the argument was probably hopeless, but it still needed to be said. “I’m hardly the sort of scholar that is brought out to impress.”

“Speak for yourself,” Marjorie said sharply. “Aziraphale, you know perfectly well that I—”

“They’re going to deny me tenure,” he said flatly, and she stopped. “Even you can hardly argue with that. I don’t wish. . . I don’t wish to drag him down with me. Bad enough to be linked to me here. Far worse for him to bring me along and forever be blamed for saddling them with a failure.”

“You are not a failure,” Marjorie snapped. “In almost any other department on campus you’d be approved easily, you know.”

“But not this one.”

She tutted at him. “You’re far too stubborn a man to give up on account of those tossers in biology.”

He sighed. “Besides, the whole ideas is mad. Utter insanity.”

“You said it just came over you,” Marjorie said.

“Pretty much.” Aziraphale remembered the moment in the lab. It had seemed so clear, just for a moment. And now it was all muddled again. “I can’t have been thinking clearly.” In a proper laboratory, the sort imagined in TV shows or possessed by Michael or Uriel he’d probably be able to blame it on a toxic chemical vapor, or some kind of contamination. It seemed unlikely that oysters could be blamed for impulsive behavior, though.

“I think you were being _guided_ ,” Marjorie said, in a very meaningful kind of voice. “There are those who watch out for us, you know, and give us a nudge when we need it.”

Aziraphale suppressed a sigh. “Marjorie, dear, I know that you’ve sometimes felt a, hrm, influence. And I’m glad that it’s meaningful to you, but—”

“Such a scientist,” she clucked. “You don’t always need to play the skeptic. We’ve all felt things that go beyond the normal. Seen things that can’t be explained.”

Like Crowley ever wanting to pass more than a minute in Aziraphale’s company, much less repeatedly volunteer to spend the rest of his life with him. If one of them was possessed, it seemed rather less likely to be Aziraphale.

Marjorie had taken his silence for agreement, apparently, and kept on talking. “There are forces out there, you know, that can help us along our way. Did you feel another presence there with you?”

No. The only presence he had been aware of was Crowley. It had felt like the two of them were the only people in the world. That was rather, Aziraphale suspected, what had made it so wonderful. “Not particularly,” he said gently.

“Well, you’ve never been particularly perceptive,” she said blithely. “Not to influences of this nature. But just you listen to me. If Someone* was there, it means it was important. It’s not so easy for them to come back to us, you know. They don’t make the journey for just anyone. I shouldn’t like to think of you just ignoring it.” 

*The capital letter was clearly audible

There was certainly nothing he could say to convince her otherwise. He murmured something soothing and noncommittal and started to make his excuses. She let him go, with a parting comment about how Crowley was far too handsome of a man to jilt, and that although the rumor mill had been oddly silent on the subject, surely a man such as him must be good with his—Which was where Aziraphale cut her off, face flaming, promptly offered goodbyes and thanks, and set down the phone.

Well.

**

If Crowley hadn’t had lab to teach that afternoon, he would have cheerfully driven into the city for a dinner that Aziraphale would really appreciate. He contemplated it anyway, but even if he travelled rather above his usual speed, he would probably still be later than Aziraphale would accept—and keeping him waiting and hungry wouldn’t be forgiven even if the food was excellent. So, instead, he flipped a coin between the two decent restaurants in town, and ended up with a stack of cardboard boxes containing the seasonal specials from the fancy pizza place.

Aziraphale opened the door before he could even knock, eyes going right to the boxes and smile widening. “Ah, perfect. I haven’t had their new butternut squash yet.”

Crowley nodded at the middle of the three boxes, setting them carefully on what looked like the most stable of the piles of paper covering the coffee table. Aziraphale bustled off and returned with two glasses of wine and a pair of china plates. Rather than getting right down to business, though, he simply set the plates on another pile, ignoring the way it wobbled under them, and sat in the chair opposite Crowley, staring at his wine glass as he turned it in his hands.

Aziraphale ignoring the food never meant anything good. Crowley leaned back into the sofa, crossed his legs, and took a healthy sip of the excellent wine. “Thought I’d never get out of lab today,” he said, focusing on his own glass. “I told them they could go, but the last group _wanted t_ o stay until they’d finished their experiment. Wouldn't let me out the door. You didn’t teach today, did you?”

“Only in the morning,” Aziraphale said absently.

“Well, someone’s got to take those 8 AM slots. Doing a service for all of us, you are.”

“It’s not a bother. I’m up early anyway.”

Time for Crowley to bring out the big guns, apparently. “Harder with the days getting shorter. Although at least we’ve had pretty decent weather for—”

That did it, fortunately. Talk of the weather was almost always certain to put an end to Aziraphale’s limited patience for small talk. He cut across Crowley as if he hadn’t been speaking at all. “Crowley. I—oh, well, I feel like such a fool. I can’t imagine what you think of me, I really can’t. And I know I said—and I know you said too, that you were still up for it, but I really think—” He looked up beseechingly, but Crowley couldn’t return anything but a rather confused tilt of his head. “I really can’t think this scheme is a good idea,” he said finally.

Ah. Apparently Crowley’s carefully assembled arguments weren’t going to go to waste after all. It wasn’t particularly surprising, when he thought about it. He lounged even deeper into the sofa and crossed his arms, waiting to hear Aziraphale’s newest reservations.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it,” Aziraphale said helplessly. He kept darting little worried glances at him, and Crowley realized belatedly that his calm expression was probably sending the wrong message. Just because he wasn’t worried didn’t mean that he shouldn’t appear to be. He deliberately frowned slightly. Aziraphale’s glance lingered a little longer, his own brows drawing together, but didn’t return as he dropped his eyes to his own hands.

“I just don’t think it’s particularly fair to you,” he said, fidgeting in his seat. “You’d be giving away all your negotiating power for anything else. No to mention, you know, showing up to a new job with someone like me. And what if you meet someone else? Someone you actually want to, you know.”

Well, that was one thing Aziraphale probably didn’t need to worry about. “Nah,” Crowley said easily. “You know me. Married to my job.”

“Married to _my_ job,” Aziraphale muttered. “Really, though, you can’t possibly want to show up at a new institution with such a, a— _handicap._ ”

Crowley found himself actually growing irritated at that. “ _Theyn_ came asking for _me_ ,” he drawled. “I think my negotiating power will be just fine. Look. When was the last time you saw me volunteer for something I didn’t want to do?”

Aziraphale frowned slightly. “Well, I couldn’t say that I particularly recall—”

Crowley smirked. “You don’t have to be tactful. I’m not ashamed of it. Been the work of a lifetime, that has.”

That earned him a somewhat reluctant smile. “You do, perhaps, have something of a reputation for slithering out of duties that you’d rather avoid.”

“Exactly. So do I really seem like the sort to make an offer I didn’t want to? Out of the pure generosity of my heart?”

Aziraphale’s smile softened slightly at the edges. “I would hardly call you ungenerous,” he murmured.

“The way I see it, it’s a win-win.” Aziraphale opened his mouth, probably to ask some variant of that inconvenient and irritatingly persistent question about what Crowley was getting out of the deal. Crowley hurried on before any such inconvenient issues could be raised. “The department’s good. They’ve just got a grant for a whole new microscopy suite. Brand new, state of the art. Every kind of microscope you can think of.”

That definitely struck home. “Really? Have they got a microCT system?”

Crowley tried to remember the details of the rather frantic rampage through the department website that had ended up taking over half his lunch. “Probably. And a couple different sorts of electron microscopes, too.”

Aziraphale’s expression had become distinctly wistful. “Oh, if I could finally get fine visualization of the interior structures, I could really sort out the ambiguities in _Amphibalanus_. . .”

 _Yes_. Crowley pressed on. “And there’s a wet lab, down in the basement. Sounds like it’s been a bit neglected, though. Needs a real marine biologist to come down and take care of it.”

That one backfired, Aziraphale’s hands starting to twist at each other. “I’ve never really run a system like that—”

“Can’t be that much to it,” Crowley said breezily. “You’ve got a set-up in your lab already, it’s just a bigger version. Oh,” he added, like it was an afterthought. “I thought I’d seen the name recently, and I went back and double-checked. Three of their people wrote a paper about improving student self-evaluation skills via formative assessments that I read a couple of months ago. Looks like a couple of them do mostly pedagogical research. Including the current assistant chair.”

It was always so easy to read Aziraphale’s face. It didn’t always serve him well, Crowley knew, but it certainly made his own job easier. Now it was a study of conflicting emotions. _Come on. Take it._

Aziraphale leaned back in his seat, took a large sip of his drink. “How’s the town?”

Crowley hadn’t actually been there himself, but his prospective chair had certainly tried hard enough to sell him on it at that last conference. “About sixty thousand, I think. The county seat.”

Aziraphale made a face. “Not very large, then.”

“Bigger than here,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale made the face that meant that he’d made a fair point, even if he didn’t like it. “They’ve got some decent restaurants. Um. Indian, I think he said, and a good Thai place too. And there’s a whole local farm-to-table thing going on too.”

Aziraphale wasn’t looking impressed. Crowley reached for his trump card, the one he really should have led with from the beginning. “And there’s a Trader Joe’s,” he said, almost casually.

“Really?” Aziraphale asked, attention caught in the usual manner of a rural academic who was wondering where their next supply of decent cheeses was going to come from. “It carries wine, too?”

“Sure,” said Crowley, although that detail hadn’t actually been mentioned. “It’s practically right across from campus.”

Aziraphale hummed, looking increasingly interested. He finally reached for his plate, opening one box and then another until he found what he was after, carefully lifting out a slice topped with cubes of squash and seared figs. Crowley, as usual, had gotten plain cheese* for himself.

*Here, plain cheese meant gourmet sauce from organic heirloom tomatoes, with roasted garlic and a variety of home-grown herbs buried under the locally-sourced mozzarella, but at least it wasn’t a salad masquerading as a pizza.

“Housing is reasonable,” Crowley said, probably too quickly in his haste to press the advantage. “Could get a decent place. Plenty of space for us not to be right on top of each other all the time. Room for a garden.”

“I’ve never been particularly good with plants,” Aziraphale murmured.

“I’ve seen your yard, you know. My expectations are reasonably calibrated.”

“Fiend,” Aziraphale said, but fondly. “And that sounds tolerable to you? Having me around all the time? Laboring out in the garden while I drink tea and make a mess of my papers indoors?”

Tolerable was not at all the word. He could just picture it—coming in and bending over the table, claiming a kiss from his husband before getting scolded about getting dirt all over his papers. Retaliating with a demand that the piles be moved from the table before dinner, only to be silenced with another kiss and soon distracted entirely from starting the cooking.

That wasn’t how it would be, of course. Crowley took a moment to perfect his slouch and swallow his voice back into a more neutral tone. “I’m sure I could put up with it.”

“Very well, then.”

Crowley let out a breath that he hadn’t been aware he was holding. Apparently, no matter how sure he was in his arguments, his subconscious had been less confident. “For good, this time? You’re not going to try to back out on me again?”

Aziraphale smiled ruefully. “For good,” he promised. “Don’t worry, I know your tender heart and delicate sensibilities can’t handle having such hopes dashed again.”

And to think there had been a time when he thought Aziraphale didn’t know what sarcasm was. “Come now,” he said, leaning back casually. There was no need for him to ever know how close that had come to being an actual cut. “You know better than to think I have a heart.”

That got both a laugh and a look of gentle reproof. “I’m sure I couldn’t tell. But,” he added a bit more briskly, reaching for the bottle to top up both of their glasses, “I suppose we had get on to the more practical bits, if we are actually going to do this.”

Crowley’s eyebrows went up. “Practical bits?” Apparently Aziraphale really did mean it, this time.

“Well, there are rather a lot of details to be worked out. First, I suppose, is what we’re going to tell everyone here.”

“Everyone here?” Crowley echoed. The speed from which Aziraphale had flipped from open questioning of the plan to delving into specifics had left him backfooted.

Aziraphale peered at him over his absurd little gold-rimmed glasses. “The academic community is notoriously small. You could just tell your prospective new department that we’re married, or engaged, of whichever. But inevitably they’ll meet someone from here at a conference or some such, and when they’re completely incredulous at the very idea. . . “

“Good point.” He could kick himself for not having thought of that, but at least the solution was obvious enough. “So, we tell everyone here.”

Now Aziraphale was studying his hands, an odd little frown between his brows. “Precisely. Of course, if you’d rather reconsider, under those circumstances. . .”

Crowley had thought they’d finally gotten over having this conversation. “What? Why?”

“There might be certain consequences,” Aziraphale said, too carefully.

Crowley took no notice of the tone. “Pissing off our departments is more of a win, really.”

“Crowley—”

“There’s not much they could do. Not if we’re both going to be leaving anyway.”

“Nothing overt, I suppose,” Aziraphale said, quiet and precise. “But the general attitude is such that—considering our respective reputations. . . “

“Don’t worry, sugar,” Crowley said. Aziraphale twitched and stared at him. “Look, we’ll need to sell the bit. I can hardly go around calling you Fell if we’re supposed to be engaged.”

“Sugar?” Aziraphale’s eyebrow was raised distastefully. “And you haven’t called me Fell in years, anyway.”

“I’ll keep workshopping it. Look, if anyone gives you grief about marrying such a shady character, send them to me. I’ll defend your honor, babe.”

“That’s not what I meant— _babe—”_ Aziraphale sputtered.

“Trust me, I’ve got it,” Crowley said with a confidence he definitely didn’t feel. What was Aziraphale so worried about, anyway? “What else do we need to sort out?”

Aziraphale had a surprisingly exhaustive list, for someone who’d started the evening intending to call the whole thing off. They settled on declaring that it had been a relationship of some four years duration, rather than a whirlwind romance. Aziraphale’s good spirits returned slowly, helped perhaps by Crowley assiduously refilling his glass, and soon he was himself again, shooting down each of Crowley’s successively more overblown proposal stories.

“Nobody is going to believe that a flash mob is the way to my heart,” he said severely, to Crowley’s latest suggestion. “Do be reasonable, my dear.” Crowley lifted an eyebrow at him, and he flushed. “You may have a reasonable point with the pet names. Even if your specific choices are execrable.”

It was progress, of a sort. “Well, I’m not telling anyone that the only audience was some oysters.”

Aziraphale tutted. “Who says you were the one to propose, anyway? I could have taken you for a nice dinner out, and then a walk in the park—”

“I _was_ the one to propose, buttercup,” Crowley interrupted. “Three bloody times. Ought to have earned the credit for that one.”

“Well, you may be right,” Aziraphale agreed reluctantly, ignoring the endearment. “I still think a relatively simple story—”

“At the duck pond,” Crowley broke in. “That’s where we’ve had most of our dates, anyway. Duck pond, picnic, sunset, ring.”

Aziraphale looked blankly down at his hand. “I don’t have a ring.”

“Which is the first thing we’ll fix. You don’t teach tomorrow afternoon, do you? We can head out after class, go to some of the jewelers in the city. Have a decent dinner out while we’re there, too.”

The suggestion of a welcome respite from the local restaurants was, as always, enough to make Aziraphale brighten. “You really think this will work?”

“Sure it will. Trust me, sweetheart.”

Aziraphale had already been watching him as he gestured expansively, and Crowley saw his eyes widen at the term, even as he himself started regretting it the moment it passed his lips. He had to get himself under control. Sincerity wasn’t a luxury he could afford. “How about it, honeybun? Want the biggest diamond an academic salary has ever seen?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes gently, and let the moment go.

**Later in March, three and a half years ago**

The third Wednesday of the month rarely induced feelings of excitement, seeing as it held the monthly faculty meeting. Crowley, joining the stream of professors heading for the auditorium in the psych wing of the science building, was internally debating how long it would take them to actually get to a vote on the proposed changes to the first year curriculum and getting increasingly pessimistic about his evening. He ruthlessly cut through the crowd to get to the coffee table. It wasn’t much of a surprise to see Aziraphale there too, contemplating the refreshments.

Crowley slipped in next to him. Behind them the chairs of the Anthropology and Environmental Studies departments were loudly congratulating each other on the new certificate program on Culture and Science of the Anthropocene, giving the two of them some cover from onlookers. “I got a new progress report for Jordan Amboy today,” he said, eyeing the coffee urns and trying to decide which would be more tolerable. “I was surprised by his grade for bio.”

Aziraphale flashed a quick smile at him. “Well, as you said, he’s a very quick study. He’s done quite well in his classwork. He deserves that A.”

“And what,” Crowley asked, edging around to grab a napkin and speaking right into Aziraphale’s ear, “Happened to that attendance policy of yours?”

“A spot of technical trouble, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale said, paying more attention to the trays in front of them than to the conversation. “Oh, good, they have those rather nice lemon bars again.”

“Technical trouble?”

“Oh dear, yes. The spreadsheet I was tracking attendance in, unfortunately. The file got corrupted, somehow. No, no, don’t ask me how, I certainly don’t know. It lost everything from the first half the semester for half the class, though, and nothing IT could do could manage to recover it.”

“You don’t keep a backup of your grading files?” Crowley’s yelp was hardly dignified, but surely even Aziraphale had more common sense than that.

“Well, there’s the hard copy that I actually take attendance on. Before I enter it in the computer.”

“So can’t you use that to fill it back in?”

Aziraphale sighed, carefully plucking a flimsy paper napkin off of the pile and peering at the tray of desserts. “Normally, yes. But you remember—or maybe you don’t, you’re not in our building, are you—with that storm, last week. Well, we’re always springing a leak somewhere. Just my luck that it was my office this time.” He frowned, using the little plastic tongs to delicately pick up a square of lemon bar.

“Your office got flooded?”

“A bit of sugar, that’s what we need to make it through the meeting, don’t you think? Oh, it wasn’t anything major. A few drips, but they did manage to make a mess of some of my papers.” Aziraphale was making no move towards the doors of the auditorium, and seemed entirely oblivious to the growing crowd of their colleagues who were being blocked from the table.

Crowley made deliberate eye contact with a few of them and smiled, enjoying the looks he got in response. “Including your attendance sheet,” he said dryly.

Aziraphale sighed. “Yes. Well, anyway, there was nothing for it after that, as I told Gabriel. Consistency. Fairness. You see. If I couldn’t tally absences for all the students equally, I really couldn’t take points off for anyone’s attendance. The department agreed that under the circumstances, an exception was warranted.”

“Not much of a choice at that point, I suppose.”

“No, not really.” He looked up from his treat. Crowley had just a moment to relish the quickest glint of triumph in his eyes before he was lowering them again, a picture of penance. “A shame, of course, but not for Mr. Amboy. And I’m being much more careful with my files from now on. It won’t happen again, I’m sure.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Crowley drawled. “These things happen to all of us, from time to time.”

Aziraphale hummed, looking reluctantly at the door to the auditorium. “Well, I suppose we had better be getting on, then,” he said. Most of the professors who had been crowded behind him had given up and already gone in; the ones who were left let out an almost audible sigh as he finally started to move, pressing in quickly to make their coffee before the meeting started. Crowley let himself be carried away by the impatient crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ack! It's been quite a bit longer than I intended, obviously. But the major life things that took me away are pretty much done, so now there's just a new job and the pandemic to keep me from writing! Anyway, I do intend to keep on with this, although updates may continue to be a bit spaced out.
> 
> To all of you who are in school in one way or another, I hope your semester is starting well and safely!


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